Books

"So Much Time and So Little to Do!": Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972, Ages 8 and Up)

7/3/2020

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- Also found in Ages 5-12

Though there are exceptions to the rule, sequels have a really bad habit of making audiences roll their eyes, foam at the mouth, or heave a brokenhearted sigh. Some relish the chance to revisit their favorite characters and join them on new adventures, while others would rather cherish the memories they already have and not risk tarnishing them. But in this case, I think the problem lays not in that the sequel is necessarily bad, but that its predecessor is just too good. First published all the way back in 1964, the original has since been adapted to film no less than three times (in ’71, ’05, and ’17) and has its own video games, musicals, and even an opera! Even more amazing, one of its main characters has become so synonymous with chocolate and madness—always a dangerous combination, no matter how you slice it—that it even inspired an entire candy brand for real-life confectionery corporation, Nestlé! How in that name of all that is scrumdiddlyumptious can a sequel top that? Well . . . it doesn’t. But that’s not to say it doesn’t have its own sweet, far-out charm!

Little Charlie Bucket thought all his dreams had come true when he was invited to visit the amazing factory of the marvelously mad chocolatier, Mr. Willy Wonka, and learn the incredible candy-making secrets within. But the aftermath has turned out to be far more wonderful than he ever could have imagined. Now officially Mr. Wonka’s successor, Charlie is on his way to his new home at the chocolate factory along with his large, tight-knit family: his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bucket, and his grandparents, Grandpa Joe and the perpetually bed-ridden Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George, and Grandma Georgia. Off they blast in Mr. Wonka’s Great Glass Elevator toward the factory. But an ill-timed mishap instead sends them all hurtling into orbit! Now the unlikely space crew must face off against dimwitted astronauts, paranoid politicians, and the terrifying man-eating aliens, the Vermicious Knids, all within a flying space hotel! All in a day’s work for Charlie and Mr. Wonka, of course. The next order of business upon their death-defying return? Getting the three cranky grandparents out of bed, with the aid of Mr. Wonka’s latest magical concoction, Wonka-Vite. But when a massive overdose results in this absurdly simple task going even more absurdly awry, it’s up to Charlie and Mr. Wonka to save the day once again!

To answer your question: no, this is not another author’s continuation of a classic story. This is, in fact, the official sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, written by Roald Dahl himself. Fun fact: he had actually planned to make the Charlie/Wonka stories into a trilogy. He wrote only a single chapter of the planned third book, Charlie in the White House, which can now be found on display at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in England.

As I touched on before, I won’t pretend that this is a superior follow-up, or even one of Dahl’s better children’s books, in my opinion. Having re-read it as an adult and looking through reviews on Barnes & Noble and Amazon, I can see why people seem to be particularly divisive about it. Among others, various judgements include “fantastic,” “boring,” and “Um . . . what the heck did I just read?” I think this comes not so much from writing quality as reader subjectivity. For example, literally the first half of the story takes place in outer space and we only get to the chocolate factory much later. A downside of this is that readers unfortunately don’t get to explore as much of the latter, or its bizarre, colorful rooms and their edible wonders. On the other hand, this does allow for a more seamless and focused plot. The first book is very episodic in format, jumping from enchanted candy and one nasty Golden Ticket winner and their literal just desserts to another in rapid succession. Here, as the plot is basically comprised of only two main episodes, the segues are much smoother, and we get more development of characters who may not have gotten a lot of page time before, namely the Bucket family, as well as a deeper look into the friendship between Charlie and Mr. Wonka.

Wonka is as wonderfully eccentric as ever, with his “never say die” attitude and convenient “deafness” for every trivial question, not to mention his brilliantly nonsensical Carroll-esque one-liners. This is also why I prefer Gene Wilder’s movie performance of Wonka over Johnny Depp’s. He nailed the book’s character as a fun mix of whimsical, optimistic child-at-heart and wise, enigmatic wizard, as opposed to a creepy, unhinged weirdo with severe Peter Pan Syndrome. Charlie, though very likeable, brave, and open-minded, admittedly doesn’t stand out as much as a character this time around. That being said, he does continue to serve as a vital link not only between readers and the story’s fanciful dream world, but also between the reality that normal people would cling to and the magic and adventure that said people, especially adults, would otherwise miss out on due to ignorance or fear:

       “‘What in the world keeps this thing up in the air?’ croaked Grandma Josephine.
         ‘Skyhooks,’ said Mr. Wonka.
         ‘You amaze me,’ said Grandma Josephine.
       ‘Dear lady,’ said Mr. Wonka, ‘you are new to the scene. When you have been with us a little longer, nothing will amaze you.’
        ‘These skyhooks,’ said Grandma Josephine. ‘I assume one end is hooked onto this contraption we’re riding in. Right?’
          ‘Right,’ said Mr. Wonka.
          ‘What’s the other end hooked onto?’ said Grandma Josephine.
          ‘Every day,’ said Mr. Wonka, ‘I get deafer and deafer. Remind me, please, to call up my ear doctor the moment we get back.’
         ‘Charlie,’ said Grandma Josephine. ‘I don’t think I trust this gentleman very much.’
           ‘Nor do I,’ said Grandma Georgina. ‘He footles around.’
Charlie leaned over the bed and whispered to the two old women. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t spoil everything. Mr. Wonka is a fantastic man. He’s my friend. I love him.’
          ‘Charlie’s right,’ whispered Grandpa Joe, joining the group. ‘Now you be quiet, Josie, and don’t make trouble.’
          ‘We must hurry!’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘We have so much time and so little to do! No! Wait! Strike that! Reverse it! Thank you! Now back to the factory!’ he cried, clapping his hands once and springing two feet in the air with two feet. ‘Back we fly to the factory! But we must go up before we can come down! We must go higher and higher!’

[ . . . ]

           ‘But why?’ they all shouted at once. ‘Why up and not down?’
          ‘Because the higher we are when we start coming down, the faster we’ll be going when we hit,’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘We’ve got to be going at an absolutely sizzling speed when we hit!’
           ‘When we hit what?’ they cried.
           ‘The factory, of course,’ answered Mr. Wonka.
           ‘You must be whackers!’ said Grandma Josephine. ‘We’ll all be pulpified!’
           ‘We’ll be scrambled like eggs!’ said Grandma Georgina.
           ‘That,’ said Mr. Wonka, ‘is a chance we shall have to take.’
           ‘You’re joking,’ said Grandma Josephine. ‘Tell us you’re joking.’
           ‘Madam,’ said Mr. Wonka, ‘I never joke.’
           ‘Oh, my dears!’ cried Grandma Georgina. ‘We’ll be lixivated, every one of us!’
           ‘More than likely,’ said Mr. Wonka.

[ . . . ]
           ‘Mr. Wonka!’ [Charlie] yelled above the noise. ‘What I don’t understand is why we’ve got to come down at such a terrific speed.’
           ‘My dear boy,’ Mr. Wonka answered, ‘if we don’t come down at a terrific speed, we’ll never burst our way back in through the roof of the factory. It’s not easy to punch a hole in a roof as strong as that.’
‘But there’s a hole in it already,’ said Charlie. ‘We made it when we came out.’
           ‘Then we shall make another,’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘Two holes are better than one. Any mouse will tell you that.’” (p. 2-5)

One of Dahl’s talents as a children’s writer was his ability to inject just the right amount of comedy into his more dangerous plot points in order to take away the edge of horror. Not unlike in traditional fairy tales, the circumstances could be so outlandish that even if death does occur, it’s a lot less likely to phase you, especially if happens to the bad guys. Be honest: how many of you really feared for the lives of Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, Veruca Salt, and Mike Teevee in the face of the literally sticky situations they’d so arrogantly gotten themselves into? This time around, though, Dahl raises the stakes. In the climax of the space episode, a particularly venomous Vermicous Knid is in hot pursuit of the Great Glass Elevator and its occupants as they fly above planet earth. No matter how deadly they are, aliens that looks like giant googly-eyed chicken nuggets able to elongate itself like snakes and form letters to spell out the word “SCRAM” come off to me as more funny than scary. And then you have Wonka taunting them in verse that’s just as wild as anything the Oompa Loompas could think up. It’s almost like Dahl’s practically daring you to keep your face straight:

          “And there it was, cruising effortlessly alongside them, a simply colossal Vermicious Knid, as thick as a whale, as long as a truck, with the most brutal vermicious look in its eye. It was no more than a dozen yards away, egg-shaped, slimy, greenish brown, with one malevolent red eye (the only one visible) fixed intently upon the people floating inside the Great Glass Elevator.

[ . . . ]

             ‘Oh, you Knid, you are vile and vermicious!’
                             cried Mr. Wonka.
             ‘You are slimy and soggy and squishous!
             But what do we care
            ’Cause you can’t get in here,
             So hop it and don’t get ambitious!’

            At this point, the massive Knid outside turned and started cruising away from the Elevator. ‘There you are!’ cried Mr. Wonka, triumphant. ‘It heard me! It’s going home!’ But Mr. Wonka was wrong. When the creature was about a hundred yards away, it stopped, hovered for a moment, then went smoothly in reverse, coming back toward the Elevator with its rear-end (which was the pointed end of the egg) now in front. Even going backward, its acceleration was unbelievable. It was like some monstrous bullet coming at them and it came so fast nobody had time even to cry out.
            CRASH! It struck the Glass Elevator with the most enormous bang and the whole thing shivered and shook, but the glass held and the Knid bounced off like a rubber ball.
           ‘What did I tell you!’ shouted Mr. Wonka, triumphant. ‘We’re safe as sausages in here!’
           ‘He’ll have a nasty headache after that,’ said Grandpa Joe.
           ‘It’s not his head, it’s his bottom!’ said Charlie. ‘Look Grandpa, there’s a big bump coming up on the pointed end where he hit! It’s turning black and blue!’
            And so it was. A purple bruisy bump the size of a small automobile was appearing on the pointed rear-end of the giant Knid. ‘Hello, you dirty great beast!’ cried Mr. Wonka.

              ‘Hello, you great Knid! Tell us, how do you do?
              You’re a rather strange color today.
             Your bottom is purple and lavender blue.
             Should it really be looking that way?

             Are you not feeling well? Are you going to faint?
             Is it something we cannot discuss?
             It must be a very unpleasant complaint,
             For your fanny’s as big as a bus!

             Let me get you a doctor. I know just the man
            For a Knid with a nasty disease.
            He’s a butcher by trade which is not a bad plan,
            And he charges quite reasonable fees.

             Ah! Here he is now! Doc, you really are kind
            To travel so far into space. There’s your patient, the Knid with the
                         purple behind!
             Do you think it’s a desperate case?

             “Great heavens above! It’s no wonder he’s pale!”
              Said the doc with a horrible grin.
             “There’s a sort of balloon on the end of his tail!
            I must prick it at once with a pin!”

             So he got out a thing like an Indian spear,
             With feathers all over the top,
             And he lunged and he caught the Knid smack
       in the rear,
             But alas, the balloon didn’t pop!

              Cried the Knid, ‘What on earth am I going to do
              With this painful preposterous lump?
                 I can’t remain standing the whole summer
            through!
                 And I cannot sit down on my rump!

               “It’s a bad case of rear-ache,” the medico said,
               “And it’s something I cannot repair.
            If you want to sit down, you must sit on
                          your head,
                 With your bottom high up in the air!’’’” (p. 57-61)

Dahl refused to permit this sequel to receive the film treatment in his lifetime due to his strong disdain for the adaptation Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Truth be told, I personally doubt a Glass Elevator movie would do that well, but I’m fond enough of Dahl’s work that curiosity would compel me to see it if it ever did come to fruition. Regardless, those searching for his stylistic trademarks won’t be disappointed here. While Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor in terms of surprise twists and over the top silliness, I don’t think it should be dismissed as a bad nut to be tossed down the garbage chute either, as it certainly isn’t lacking in the wit, poetry, and imagination that immortalized Dahl’s name in children’s literature. Try this underrated treat for yourself, and see if it’s wild and wacky enough for your mental taste buds.

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

All book excerpts are from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl (Puffin Edition 1998, published by the Penguin Group, New York, NY).

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“Space Adventure” – The Green Orbs
“Nutty Comedy” – Biz Baz Studio
“Cartoon Space Utopia” – Sir Cubworth

Listen to the episode here!

Roald Dahl on Wikipedia

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator on Roald Dahl's Official Website

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator on Fandom

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator on Goodreads

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator on Common Sense Media

Buy Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator on Amazon

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“1:06 PM OCT 18 88”: Replay (1986, Ages 17 and Up)

1/3/2020

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- Also found in Ages 13-18

And now a reading from the book of Ecclesiastes:

"1 The words of Qoheleth, king in Jerusalem:

                Vanity of Toil without Profit

2 Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
    vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
3 What profit has man from all the labor
    which he toils at under the sun?
4 One generation passes and another comes,
    but the world forever stays.

[ . . .]

9 What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. 10 Even the thing of which we say, ‘See, this is new!' has already existed in the ages that preceded us. 11 There is no remembrance of the men of old; nor of those to come will there be any remembrance among those who come after them.

[ . . .]

12 I, Qoheleth, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, 13 and I applied my mind to search and to investigate in wisdom all things that are done under the sun.

A thankless task God has appointed
For men to be busied about.

14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after the wind.

15           What is crooked cannot be made straight;
                    what is missing cannot be supplied.

16 Though I said to myself, ‘Behold, I have become great and stored up wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my mind has broad experience of wisdom and knowledge’: 17 yet when I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, I learned that this, also, is a chase after wind.

18 For in much wisdom there is much sorrow;
and he who stores up knowledge, stores up grief." (Ecc. 1:1-18, New American Bible)

I don’t remember whether any of these verses are the ones my Modern Fantasy professor referenced in relation to this novel. But I feel they are an appropriate setup for such a provocative story nonetheless.

The year is 1988. Forty-three year-old radio journalist Jeff Winston is in the middle of a tense phone conversation with his wife when, all of a sudden, he dies of a heart attack. But that does not mark the end of Jeff. To his utter shock, Jeff reawakens not only alive and well, but inside his eighteen-year-old body in 1963. Even more incredible, he has full recollection of his “previous” existence, including every significant world event that did and will transpire in the next twenty-five years, from natural disasters and political scandals to sports winnings and stock market outcomes. He seizes the opportunity to improve this second life with his “past” and “future” knowledge. But this prospect turns out to be quite literally short-lived when he finds that, no matter where he is or what historical changes he’s made, he will keep dying in the exact same time in the exact same year as before, only to revive in the past of an entirely new timeline, with every memory of every life still intact. With billions of unanswered questions and seemingly no way to survive beyond 1988, what Jeff faces going forward will either strengthen his will to live, or destroy it.

I first read this sci-fi fantasy novel when I was studying alternate history in fiction. Author Ken Grimwood’s most famous book, Replay is often thought to be a precursor to a similarly structured film, Groundhog Day. Believe it or not, it was actually while he was writing a sequel to Replay that Grimwood died of a heart attack himself. I have no words for that except: Woah. Grimwood’s specialty as a writer was the exploration of philosophical and existential ideas through a metaphysical lens. In fact, Replay was just one of at least three of his stories in which he used time travel as a means for his characters to contemplate the true meaning and purpose of human existence. His 1976 debut, Breakthrough, tells the story of an epileptic woman whose experimental brain implants enable her to read the mind of her past self from 200 years ago, and Elise, the title character of his very rare 1979 book, is an immortal woman who is shaped by her experiences with the numerous lovers she involves herself with over the centuries. What sets those examples apart from this, however, is that they feel much better controlled, and more voluntary. When Jeff finds himself back in time, it is not only the events of his past appearing again in tangible form that unnerve him so. The architecture, the fashion, the people, the social norms, the mannerisms, his own body; the sheer differences of such ordinary things between the decades make them feel utterly alien to him, especially those he has a personal connection with:

          “The door of the room swung open, and the inner knob banged against a bookcase. Just as it always had.
        ‘Hey, what the hell are you still doing here? It’s a quarter to eleven. I thought you had an American Lit test at ten.’
        Martin stood in the doorway, a Coke in one hand and a load of textbooks in the other. Martin Bailey, Jeff’s freshman-year roommate; his closest friend through college and for several years thereafter.
     Martin had committed suicide in 1981, right after his divorce and subsequent bankruptcy.
          ‘So what’re you gonna do,’ Martin asked, ‘take an F?’
        Jeff looked at his long-dead friend in stunned silence: the thick black hair that had not yet begun to recede, the unlined face, the bright, adolescent eyes that had seen no pain, to speak of.’

[. . .]

        ‘Jeff sat alone at a table for two in a UFO-shaped Polaris bar atop the Hyatt Regency, watching the denuded Atlanta skyline rotate past him every forty-five minutes. The cab driver hadn’t been ignorant, after all: The seventy-story cylinder of the Peachtree Plaza didn’t exist. Gone, too, were the towers of the Omni International, the grey stone bulk of the Georgia Pacific Building, and Equitable’s great black box. The most commanding structure in all of downtown Atlanta was this one, with its widely copied atrium lobby. A brief conversation with the waitress, though, had made it clear that the hotel was new and as yet unique.
       The hardest moment had come when Jeff had looked into the mirror behind the bar. He’d done so purposefully, knowing full well by then what he would see, but still he was shocked to confront his own pale, lanky eighteen-year-old reflection.
        Objectively, the boy in the mirror looked somewhat more mature than that; he’d seldom had problems being served liquor at that age, as with the waitress just now, but Jeff knew that was merely an illusion caused by his height and his deep-set eyes. To his own mind, the image in the mirror was of an untried and unscarred youth.
        And that youth was himself. Not in memory, but here, now: these unlined hands with which he held his drink, these sharply focused eyes with which he saw.
        ‘You ready for another one yet, honey?’
       The waitress smiled prettily at him, lips bright red beneath her heavily mascaraed eyes and antiquated beehive hairdo. She wore a ‘futuristic’ costume, an iridescent blue mini-dress of the sort that would be worn by young women everywhere in another two or three years.
        Two or three years from now. The early sixties.
        Jesus Christ.” (pg. 6-11)

Grimwood utilizes his own expertise in journalism to add authentic import to the narrative. The sheer amount of historical events he makes reference to is impressive by itself, but even more so is the manner in which he makes those references hit so close to home through Jeff’s eyes. Even the most turbulent eras, once they end, can and do lose their emotional impact in the collective consciousness, as the progression of time may at least soften the blow, if not completely heal the wounds. But for Jeff, the knowledge that such terrible events will happen over and over again, whether isolated incidents like the Independence Day floods of Lake Erie or world-changing catastrophes like JFK’s assassination, and that everything positive he achieves will be completely erased as soon as he dies, weighs more heavily on his mind with every replay.

Now lest you’re afraid the repeating time loops will make the storytelling go stale fast, Grimwood throws in some clever curve balls by offering Jeff a cosmic double-edged sword of sorts, a revelation that confounds and devastates him even as it eases his temporal loneliness. Against all odds, he locates another “replayer”, a woman named Pamela Phillips, who began her own replaying at age fourteen. (No question, she got this way worse than Jeff did; imagine the trauma of having to constantly relive your teen years. Ugh.) The two take the greatest joy in the fact that neither of them are alone in this terrifying phenomenon, that even with the inevitability of their “deaths” looming over them they can look forward to finding each other’s love and comfort. But yet another shocking discovery obliterates what little structure they create. While their times of death are always right on the dot, their replays occur later and later in their original timelines to the point where they each wake up with only months, weeks, and days instead of years to live a “new life”, what the two call a “skew” in time. And as their individual skews grow longer and longer, the time they have at all, let alone with each other, becomes all the more precious. But with that preciousness comes the regret that accomplishing one thing, even a wonderful and gratifying thing, means not accomplishing another, the mourning of so many possibilities unrealized and so many wishes unfulfilled, even in the midst of a life well lived:

          “Pamela turned to Jeff, let flow the tears she’d been holding back. ‘I don’t want them to go. It’s still another month before . . . before . . .’
        He embraced her, smoothed her hair. ‘We’ve been through all this before,’ he told her gently. ‘It’s best for them to have a few weeks to adjust to being with their father again, to make new friends . . . That may help them absorb the shock a little.’
         ‘Jeff,’ she said, sobbing, ‘I’m scared! I don’t want to die! Not . . . die forever, and—’
           He hugged her tightly, rocked her in his arms and felt his own tears trickle down his face. ‘Just think of how we’ve lived. Think of all we’ve done, and let’s try to be grateful for that.’
             ‘But we could have done so much more. We could have—’
           ‘Hush,’ he whispered. ‘We did all we could. More than either of us ever dreamed when we were first starting out.’
            She leaned back, searched his eyes as if seeing them for the first time, or the last. ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘It’s just . . . I got so used to the endless possibilities, the time . . . never being bound by our mistakes, always knowing we could go back and change things, make them better. But we didn’t, did we? We only made things different.’ (pg. 287)

[. . .]

          Now that Pamela was gone, the fears and regrets she had expressed came back to trouble him as deeply as they’d disturbed her toward the end. He’d done what he could to reassure her, to ease the grief and terror of her final days, but she’d been right: For all that they had struggled, all they’d once achieved, the end result was null. Even the happiness they had managed to find together had been frustratingly brief; a few years stolen here and there, transient moments of love and contentment like vanishing specks of foam in a sea of lonely, needless separation.
           It had seemed as if they would have forever, an infinity of choices and second chances. They had squandered far too much of the priceless time that had been granted them, wasted it on bitterness and guilt and futile quests for nonexistent answers—when they themselves, their love for each other, had been all the answer either of them should have ever needed. Now even the opportunity to tell her that, to hold her in his arms and let her know how much he had revered and cherished her, was eternally denied him. Pamela was dead, and in three years’ time Jeff, too, would die, never knowing why he’d lived.
        He roamed his city streets, watching, listening: tough-eyed bands of punks, furious at the world . . . men and women in corporate attire, hurrying to accomplish whatever goals they had established for themselves . . . giggling swarms of children, exuberant at the newness of their lives. Jeff envied them all, coveted their innocence, their ignorance, their expectations.” (pg. 291-292)

To write Replay off as simply another “be careful what you wish for” scenario involving a guy going through a specific time period over and over again would do it a very grave disservice. I feel it’s less about striving to “edit” and “re-edit” the mistakes or undesirable situations of a given timeline until some “perfect” Hollywood ending is achieved, and more about experiencing different ways of life and understanding that there is no single right way to live it to the fullest. Extraordinary circumstances aside, I think Grimwood’s story is one that any adult can relate to because its protagonist is someone we can all empathize with: an ordinary but good man who wonders why he exists, whether there are greater forces at work that either guide or coerce his decisions, and what he can and should live for. The book’s primary trope may be old hat by now, but what we can learn from this example truly is timeless.

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

Unless noted otherwise, all book excerpts are from Replay by Ken Grimwood (First Quill Edition 1998, published by William Marrow Paperbacks, New York).

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“Split Screen” – Silent Partner
“Passed”— Riot
“Time Stops” – Silent Partner

Listen to the episode here!

Replay on Wikipedia

Ken Grimwood on Wikipedia

Ken Grimwood on Fantastic Fiction

Replay on Goodreads

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"What is True Happiness?": Night on the Galactic Railroad (1934/1985, Ages 12 and Up)

9/6/2019

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- Also found in Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema, Adaptations, Retellngs, and Old Tales in New Light, Animation, Anime/Manga, and Ages 5-12

If there’s one type of story setting with potential and possibilities that are quite literally endless, it is outer space, or more specifically, the universe. Long before humanity even conceived the scientific age, never mind entered it, we’ve been entranced by the sky’s breathtaking splendor and fascinated by its mind-boggling phenomena. I think what I especially like about interstellar stories is what they can offer audiences in terms of symbolism and meaning. Whether you enjoy studying the ways of the purely physical and scientific, or enjoy pondering the enigmas of the deities said to live on high, there’s so much here to stir the imagination of virtually any type of intellectual. But we have also been humbled and even terrified by its sheer vastness and seemingly incomprehensible mysteries. In the face of such a force of nature, there are few out there who don’t question the worth and meaning of their lives on Earth—and that includes children.

The life of Giovanni, a young village boy, is not an easy one. With his mother ill and his sea-faring father’s whereabouts unknown, he has had to work hard to support his family, leaving him no time to play with the other children and causing him to be taunted and bullied by them. But one night, as he is resting with fatigue and loneliness up on the hill side, he is stunned when a huge steam locomotive appears before him right out of the sky. He boards the train and is inexplicably joined by Campanella, the one classmate who cares for him. Giovanni is delighted in spite of his confusion, and the two boys happily ride the train together, taking in all the sights and wonders the galaxy has to offer. But it soon becomes apparent that neither this flying train nor its peculiar passengers are what they seem. And as the train approaches its final destination, Giovanni learns a valuable lesson about life, death, and true happiness.

Also known in the west by titles like Night of the Milky Way Railway, Night Train to the Stars, or Fantasy Railroad in the Stars, this is Kenji Miyazawa’s best known work and to this day one of most studied children’s novels in Japan. So impressed were readers, in fact, that the novel was published not only posthumously, but technically unfinished. Though Miyazawa’s untimely death in 1933 prevented him from completing the story, there was fortunately enough material written for publishers to release the book in a coherent state. But for all its success, its conception came in the wake of a great tragedy. In 1922, when he was 26 years old, Kenji lost his beloved younger sister, Toshiko, to tuberculosis. Grief-stricken, he traveled by train to Sakhalin not long after, plagued by the question of where his sister had gone after death. Not without reluctance and a heavy heart, he would eventually accept her passing and be inspired by his trip to write his story, thanks in no small part to his strong Buddhist beliefs.

But as devout as Miyazawa was, his writing feels a lot more spiritual than religious, mainly because of the universality he strives to emphasize throughout. For instance, the scenes exemplifying his passion for natural sciences like astronomy and geology—from the teacher’s explanation of the Milky Way, to the ancient rocks and fossils found in the Pliocene Coast—not only provide a nice educational touch, but blend beautifully with the plot’s more mystical elements to create an atmosphere of awe and respect for the natural world:

NOVEL:
                “All the pebbles along the river bed were translucent. There were clearly pieces of crystal and topaz among them. Some showed complex patterns of folds and swirls while others, diamond-bright, released a pale light-like mist where two facets met. Giovanni ran to the river’s edge and plunged in his hand. The uncanny water of the Milky Way’s silver river was more transparent than hydrogen, but, clearly, it was flowing. This could be told from the way the two boys’ wrists seemed to float with a faint tinge of mercury where they were submerged in the water, and from the way the ripples that formed where the water flowed against the wrists seemed to flicker and burn with a beautiful phosphorescent light.

[. . .]

      ‘There’s something strange here!’
    Campanella stopped in surprise and picked up from the rock a walnut-like object, long and slender with a pointed tip.
       ‘It’s a walnut! Look, they’re lots of them! They didn’t just wash up here; they’re embedded in the rock.’
       ‘They’re big, twice the size of normal walnuts. This one’s not the least bit broken.’
         ‘Come on, let’s have a look over there. I bet they’re digging something up.’
         Clutching their black, jagged-edged walnuts, they headed toward the spot. On their left the waves burned with a sort of gentle lightning as they lapped the shore, while on the right the ears of the pampas grass, looking as though they were made of silver and sea shells, rustled on the cliff.” (p. 36-37)

FILM:
GIOVANNI: (Admiring Campanella’s strange but beautiful map.) What a neat map! Where did you get it from? It looks like it’s made out of obsidian.

[. . .]

CAMPANELLA: (Scooping a handful of glittering sand from within the river bed.) Every grain of sand is a crystalline jewel. There’s a spark of fire inside every one of them.

[. . .]

(Campanella plucks a rock-like object out of the sand.)
GIOVANNI: (Kneeling beside him.) What is it?
CAMPANELLA: (Shows him.) It’s a walnut! Just look, they’re everywhere!
GIOVANNI: (Picks up his own walnut and admires it in amazement.) That’s a huge one! It’s twice as big as a normal walnut, and it looks in perfect shape.

[. . .]

(The two boys make it back to the train just in time for it to leave the Pliocene Coast.)
CAMPANELLA: (Breathless but excited.) Yeah, we made it back. We just ran as fast as the wind, for 1.2 million years! It’s amazing!
GIOVANNI: (His voice filled with wonder.) Yeah, for 1.2 million years.

And certain artistic choices by the author also reflect a sort of social and geographical neutrality. The book offers almost no physical character descriptions, but said characters come from a village with various European features and have common Italian names, even when they are drawn as distinctly Asian. To blur the ethnic lines even further, as well as to solve the issue of visual presentation of racial and cultural identity, the animators of the film decided to depict the characters as anthropomorphic cats rather than humans.

Additionally, Miyazawa had a strong interest in Esperanto, today the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language in the world. The film pays homage to this by presenting each chapter title in Esperanto along with his native Japanese. More to the point, it’s worth noting that the name in English means “one who hopes”. I don’t know whether he had this implication in mind, but I think there is a connection between that and the story’s biggest thematic question: “What is true happiness?” Here, Miyazawa suggests that the answer lays in self-sacrifice. Giovanni’s own unhappiness runs deeper than just the pain of loneliness; the more he is faced with this idea, the more uncertain he becomes whether his life could ever truly benefit others. This is ironically exacerbated by his relationship with Campanella. Feeling both admiration and inferiority toward him, his only friend, Giovanni desperately wants nothing more than for the two of them to stay together forever, a desire all the more heartbreaking for the oppressive sense that it could be dashed at any time:

NOVEL:
                “For some reason—he did not know why—Giovanni began to feel unbearably sorry for the bird catcher sitting next to him. [. . .] He was about to ask the bird catcher what he desired most, but thought that might seem too abrupt. Wondering what would be the best thing to do, he glanced behind him, only to find that the bird catcher was no longer there.
                [. . .]
                ‘I wonder where that man went?’ Campanella said softly. He, too, had clearly been thinking about him.
                ‘Where did he go? When will we ever see him again? Why didn’t I talk to him more than I did?’
                 ‘I was just wondering the same thing.’
           ‘I just considered him a nuisance. I feel awful about it.’ Giovanni thought he had never before felt this peculiar sort of emotion, nor said this sort of thing.” (p. 53-54)

[. . .]

                “Giovanni heaved a deep sigh. ‘We’re back to just the two of us alone again, aren’t we? Let’s go on and on together forever. [. . .]’
                Bright tears welled up in Campanella’s eyes. ‘I feel the same way,’ he said.
                ‘But I wonder what true happiness really is,’ said Giovanni.
                ‘I don’t know,’ said Campanella in a far-away voice.
                ‘Well, we’ll give it our best won’t we!’ Giovanni exclaimed, drawing a deep breath as though new strength were surging up within him.
                [. . .]
                ‘Even if I were in the middle of that huge darkness, I wouldn’t be afraid,’ said Giovanni. I really am going to go and search for the true happiness of everyone. Let’s go on together, on and on and on forever.’
                ‘I’ll go for sure . . . How beautiful those fields are! Everyone’s there. Now, that’s the real heaven! Look, my mother is there!’ Campanella shouted, pointing toward the beautiful fields he could see in the distance beyond the window.
              Giovanni looked, but saw nothing but hazy whiteness; it did not appear at all as Campanella described.” (p. 75-76)

FILM:
GIOVANNI: (Uncertainly to Campanella.) Hey, no matter where we go, we’ll be together, right?
CAMPANELLA: (Suddenly gasps and looks over Giovanni’s shoulder, noticing the bird catcher missing.) Look, that man’s gone. Where did he go?
GIOVANNI: (Looks around the train car, then at the seat the bird catcher had previously occupied.) I wonder where he went. (Gazes at the ceiling despondently.) I sort of wish now that I had spent more time talking to him. It kind of felt like he was interrupting. I wanted him to leave. But now I feel bad.
CAMPANELLA: Yeah. Me, too.

[. . .]

GIOVANNI: I guess it’s just the two of us now. (Campanella stays silent.) Hey, let’s just keep going like this forever, okay? That’s right! We’ll always be together, won’t we, Campanella?
CAMPANELLA: (Gasps softly, then relaxes and nods.) Hmm. Yes, I’d like that.
GIOVANNI: (Suddenly puzzled.) But then again, where exactly are we going anyway?
CAMPANELLA: (Uneasily.) Well, I-I don’t know.
GIOVANNI: (Brightly.) As long as we’re together!

[. . .]

(As the train approaches the Coal Sack, a black hole.)
GIOVANNI: (Seeing Campanella’s hands trembling in his lap.) What’s wrong? Hey, don’t worry, I’m not afraid of the dark anymore. We’ll get through this together, won’t we?
CAMPANELLA: (Seemingly reassured.) Yeah, I guess you’re right then. We will get through it. (Looks out the window.) Look at that lovely field out there. It’s so beautiful, so peaceful.
GIOVANNI: (Also looking out, confused.) What field?
CAMPANELLA: That must be the field of the true heaven. I see now. That’s where my mother is. She’s waiting for me.
GIOVANNI: (Looking slowly from the Coal Sack to Campanella and back again.) Hey, Campanella. We’ll always be together, won’t we?

To be sure, Giovanni’s increasingly incessant questioning of whether he and his dearest friend will stay together borders on obsession, but that doesn’t make him an unlikable or unsympathetic character. He is a mirror of his creator’s own suffering and inner turmoil, a young man whose sudden tragic misfortune deepened his fear and confusion as to where mortal life was headed and what, if anything, lay beyond it. And what can be more human than that?

Whether you enjoy Night on the Galactic Railroad in either book or film form is going to depend greatly on taste. Its plot and tone are quiet and somber rather than epic and action-packed, and the movie in particular may require some patience—especially from children—for its sparse dialogue and relatively slow pace. But those who choose to experience it in full will be rewarded with a visually stunning and gently moving story that explores faith, grief, and self-reflection through the eyes of souls who wonder what they will leave behind as well as what they will find next when they leave this world for good.

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“Mind And Eye Journey” & “Sea Space” — Emily A. Sprague

All book excerpts are from Night of the Milky Way Railway by Miyazawa Kenji, English translation by Sarah M. Strong (1991 edition, published by M. E. Sharpe, Inc.)

All other sound and music clips are from the English dub of Night on the Galactic Railroad (production by Group TAC; distributed by Nippon Herald Films).

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"Don't Call Me a Fairy": The Stolen Child (2006, Ages 17 and Up)

6/7/2019

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- Also found in Ages 13-18

It’s not entirely surprising when kids and adults say want to trade places. Kids usually want the respect and power that only comes with age, and adults often wish they could go back to the days of boundless energy and carefree dreams. As for me, while I would never get rid of my inner child for anything, I really have no regrets leaving my childhood in the past where it belongs. There are plenty of tales out there that explore these ideas, sometimes by way of showing children literally becoming stuck in adults’ bodies and/or adults in children’s bodies, whether through body-switching or accelerated aging or de-aging, with the immediate results often being equal parts weird and hilarious. But when all is said and done, such scenarios typically end with said characters being returned to their proper ages and forms, wiser for the wear. But . . . what if that end didn’t come for years, or even decades? What if it never came at all? Would the result be depression? Confusion? Anger? Madness? Or maybe all of the above?

In 1949, seven-year old Henry Day is kidnapped by changelings—wild, ancient, childlike creatures that dwell in the woods—and becomes one of them. Meanwhile, another changeling takes his place, reforming himself in Henry’s image and now living his life among the Day family. In time, they each learn to adjust to their new roles. The new changeling—renamed Aniday by his now-fellow changelings—must adapt to and survive their strange ways as well as the harsh wilderness, while the new Henry Day must cope with the ordinary but strenuous trials of adolescence. But even as the two boys overcome their respective ordeals and thrive in the years that follow, they are increasingly haunted by vague memories of their past and regretful of the humanity they lost at the hands of the changelings. Despite the risk of discovery and death by humans becoming ever greater as a result of their growing obsession, neither Henry nor Aniday will be able to rest until they understand who they once were and find a way to come to terms with each other and all of their identities.

Keith Donohue’s debut novel is inspired by the 1889 poem of the same name by famed Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, about fairies beguiling and tempting a human child to run away with them. In relation to this book, I think the romantic implications of Yeats’ poem are painfully ironic. Donohue keeps the primary lore about the human/fairy switch intact, but that’s where the similarities end. His changeling band is indigenous hunter-gatherer tribe, wolf pack, and kids’ street gang all rolled into one. They survive off the land while also organizing raids in order to steal clothes and supplies for protection against the elements as well as for amusement. It’s almost like observing an ongoing slumber party at a permanent summer camp, albeit with kids under ten smoking and even love-making at times.

Henry and Aniday tell their stories years after their respective switches occurred, thus their “adult” voices and minds are consistent even when they are “children”. In spite of the radically different lives they once lived and are living now, they still cherish their humanity more than anything, and often show their disgust at the changelings’ conduct. The boys fear losing not only their personal memories, but the very memory of being human. Thus they each turn to a hobby that epitomizes what separates humans from animals: the arts.

Aniday takes to reading, writing, and drawing, I think in part because, having lived only seven human years before being taken, it’s really all he knows at that point—and to his dismay, it shows. Between the limitations of his used and stolen art supplies and his initial pitiful lack of artistic ability, his desperation to keep alive what he believes to be his true self is palpable:

“[. . .] Up and out of bed, I savored the light growing strong enough for drawing and writing. I took out my papers and pencil, put a cold flat stone on my lap, and folded the mortgage statement into quarters. I drew a cross along the folds and made panels for four drawings. The pencil was at once odd and familiar in my grasp. In the first panel, I created from memory my mother and father, my two baby sisters, and myself, full-body portraits lined up in a straight row. When I considered my work, they looked crude and uneven, and I was disappointed in myself.

[. . .]

“Writing proved more painful than drawing. Certain letters—B,G,R,W—caused my hand to cramp. In those early writings, sometimes my K bent backwards, S went astray, an F accidentally became an E, and other errors that are amusing to me now as I look back on my early years, but at the time, my handwriting caused me much shame and embarrassment. Worse than the alphabet, however, were the words themselves. I could not spell for beans and lacked all punctuation. My vocabulary annoyed me, not to mention style, diction, sentence structure, variety, adjectives and adverbs, and other such matters. The physical act of writing took forever. Sentences had to be assembled nail by nail, and once complete, they stood no better than a crude approximation of what I felt or wanted to say, a woebegone fence across a white field. Yet I persisted through that morning, writing down all I could remember in whatever words I had at my command.” (Pg. 51-53)

For his part, Henry couldn’t be happier being a normal human once more—or more terrified that it could end all over again. He finds his artistic calling in music. After the initial difficulty of “mastering” the piano at a rate not unusual for a young boy, his imagination is enriched and his soul stirred in a way they could never be when he lived among the callous and unrefined changelings:

              “For the next eight years, I took piano lessons, and it was the happiest time of all my lives. [. . .] On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the trip to the city proved a tonic, away from farm and family and into civilization. No longer something wild, but a creature of culture, on my way to becoming a virtuoso once again.” (Pg. 44)

[. . .]

                  The glory of the experience rested in the simple fact that my musical talent was a human one. There were no pianos in the woods. And as my magic slowly diminished, my artistry increased. I felt more and more removed from those who had taken me for a hundred years, and my sole hope and prayer was that they would leave me alone.

[. . .]

                I played every chance I could get. Over the next few years, I spent hours each day at the keys, enthralled by the mathematics of the notes. The music seized me like a river current pushing my conscious self deeper into my core, as if there were no other sound in the world but one. I grew my legs an inch longer than necessary that first summer in order to better reach the pedals on the upright. Around the house, school, and town, I practiced spreading my fingers as far apart as they would go. The pads of my fingertips became smooth and feather-sensitive. My shoulders bowed down and forward. I dreamt in wave after wave of scales. The more adept my skill and understanding grew, the more I realized the power of musical phrasing in everyday life. The trick involves getting people to listen to the weak beats and seemingly insignificant silences between notes, the absence of tones between tones. By phrasing the matter with a ruthlessly precise logic, one can play—or say—anything. Music taught me great self-control.” (Pg. 55-57)

As the book progresses, we see how the boys’ actions directly and indirectly influence more than just each other. No matter how carefully Henry and Aniday try to distance themselves from each other’s races in order to protect themselves, their close proximity torments and endangers them both. But just as bad as their mortal danger, if not worse, is the psychological danger placed on those around them, namely when those victims wind up witnessing more than, and yet not as much as, they should:

HENRY’S POV:

                 “[. . .] [Dad’s] voice woke me at first light, and I followed the sound from my bedroom and through the back doorway. A feathery mist rose from the lawn and he stood, his back to me, in the middle of the wet grass, calling out my name as he faced a stand of firs. A dark trail of footsteps led into the woods ten feet in front of him. He was stuck to the spot, as if he had startled a wild animal that fled away in fear. But I saw no creature. By the time I drew near, the diminuendo of a few raspy calls of ‘Henry’ lingered in the air. Then he fell to his knees, bent his head to the ground, and quietly wept. I crept back into the house, and pretended to be reading the sports page when he came in. My father stared at me hunched over the newspaper, my long fingers wrapped around a coffee cup. The wet belt of his robe dragged along the floor like a chain. Soaked, disheveled, and unshaven, he seemed much older, but maybe I had not noticed before how he was aging. His hands trembled as if palsied, and he took a Camel from his pocket. The cigarette was too wet to light despite his repeated attempts, so he crumpled the whole pack and tossed it in the trash can. I set a cup of coffee in front of him, and he stared at the steam as if I had handed him poison.
                  ‘Dad, are you all right? You look a mess.’
                 ‘You.’ He pointed his finger at me like a gun, but that’s all he said. The word hung in the air all morning, and I do not think I ever heard him call me ‘Henry’ again.” (Pg. 98-99)

ANIDAY’S POV:

                “[. . .] The door swung open suddenly, petrifying me on the spot. A man came down the stairs, pausing on the next-to-bottom step to light a cigarette. Wrapped in a blue robe, the figure took one step forward, then lifted his foot, startled by the moisture. He laughed and cursed softly. The specter still did not notice me, though we faced each other—he at the edge of the house, and I at the edge of the forest. I wanted to turn around and see what he was looking for, but I stood frozen as a hare as the daybreak lifted around us. From the lawn, a chill rose in wisps of fog. He drew closer, and I held my breath. Not a dozen steps between us, he stopped. The cigarette fell from his fingers. He took one more step toward me. His brow creased with worry. His thin hair blew in the breeze. An eternity passed as his eyes danced in their sockets. His lips trembled when he opened his mouth to speak.
                ‘And we? Envy?’
                The words coming to me did not make sense.
                ‘Is a chew? Atchoo? Can a bee, Houston?’
            The sounds he made hurt my ears. At that moment I wished to be sleeping in Speck’s arms again. He knelt on the damp grass and spread out his arms as if he expected me to run to him. But I was confused and did not know if he meant me harm, so I turned and sprinted, as fast as I could go. The monstrous gargle from his throat followed me deep into the forest until, as suddenly, the strange words stopped, yet I kept running all the way home.” (Pg. 108-109)

What makes this all the more tragic is that, because the boys are telling only what they know from only their own perspectives, they never see or understand the full truth of either the sequence of events or each other’s true feelings the way the readers do. The more their lives intersect, the more the simple misunderstandings pile up. Like the lead-up to a war, the animosity between two well-meaning but very confused individuals from vastly different cultures intensifies until it comes to a head. What’s worse, their very natures forbid them from asking for help or bearing their souls to virtually anyone. And inner battles are often much harder to fight than outside ones.

Though not a revenge story at its core, it does illustrate a struggle between two sides with much at stake. An emotional and bittersweet tale of an identity crisis at its most hellish, The Stolen Child offers a highly unique take on the changeling legend that portrays the loss of innocence, the defining and preservation of humanity, and the relentless search for one’s true self. Out of all the changeling-related plots I’ve seen in other media, this novel is to me one of the most psychologically complex and existentially ambiguous, making a serious attempt to realistically address the implications of such a drastic change to one’s being. For when has a soul not felt lost and alone upon being ripped from all they know, never to see it again accept in memory?

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

All book excerpts are from The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue (First Anchor Books edition, May 2007; published by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc).

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“I Need to Start Writing Things Down” by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/darkglow/
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/
“Awaiting Return - Atlantean Twilight” by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100318
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
“5:00 AM” by Peter Rudenko http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Pet... Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/uAg2KMC7toI

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"The Devil's Child For the Devil's Wife": The Witch’s Boy (2005, Ages 12 and Up)

3/31/2019

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- Also found in Ages 5-12

(Original post date: 3/1/19)

It’s a well-known if, unfortunately, not well-practiced, fact that not all people make good parents. Even those with the best intentions may be unable, for whatever reason, to raise a child in a healthy manner. As much as I like kids and kids’ stories, I’ve long since discovered and decided that, though I am many things, mother material is not one of them. Heck, taking care of a dog for a family friend while he was out of town for a week is the closest I’ve ever come to babysitting. In a way, the would-be parent in this novel reminds me of myself. I may not be a witch, but I, too, value my freedom to practice my preferred craft and time to meditate both on the world and on things known only to myself. So what if I suddenly had a living, breathing baby to look after? Would I raise him into a stable and content adult with the material instincts I didn’t know I had? Or would my inexperience and neglect turn him into a monster?

Deep in the woods, far from the ways of Man, a witch lives in peaceful solitude. Neither good nor evil, her very name unknown but to herself and to the powers she serves, she spends her days studying nature and its many mysteries, the flora and fauna her only company. But one day, she comes across something strange even to her: an abandoned infant, more goblin than human, possibly the most hideous offspring ever spawned. Against her better judgement, the witch takes him in, intending to raise him with the help of her cat familiar, Falance, Ysul, the she-bear, and Bagordax, a powerful demon. Though the boy, whom the witch names Lump, at first thrives within this home filled with magic and wonder, such a childhood leaves him woefully unprepared when he is faced with the cold reality that is mankind and its cruelty. As Lump grows up, his broken heart and unfulfilled dreams corrupt him with a lust for power that threatens his foster mother and those loyal to her. With neither the witch’s teachings nor all magic in the world able to reform or heal him, it falls on Lump himself to rediscover the innocence he once had, and seek out his own inner peace and happiness.

As of the time of this writing, I’ve not read any of Michael Gruber’s other books, so I can’t offer any comparisons between this and them. All I can say is, when I found The Witch’s Boy as a young teen, I thought, “Hey, it has magic in it; I’m in.” Readers who love fairy tales—like me—will love the way Gruber weaves in references to many famous fairy tales, having both protagonists and side characters of the narrative proper talk about them as though they were personal experiences or actual historical events. But these serve a greater purpose than simply further showing off the already magical setting. Gruber subverts these tales in ways that realistically explore characters’ psyches and motivations, and which not-so-subtly suggest that the traditional stories are just the offensively sanitized, nonsensical ramblings of superstitious humans and these new accounts tell the real, brutally honest truth as nature intended. Depending on your point of view, it can be difficult to decide which versions are meant to be more provocative and disturbing. That being said, we are offered some very intriguing alternate scenarios here. For example: What if Cinderella was in fact an unhinged clean freak who ditched her kind--not mean—stepmother for the prince? What if Pinocchio did forego school to become a performer? What if Sleepy Beauty regretted being awakened and longed to go back to her perfect dream world? And what if a dangerous predator was instead a true friend and ally and a brave, strong man the real monster to the witch when she was once an innocent little girl in a bright red cloak?

But fantasy is only the backdrop to a story that can be all too real: a mother who, besides being distracted by her work, doesn’t know how to be a mother in the first place, and the negative impact this has on her charge. The witch is not the easiest protagonist to sympathize with at times. As far as parenting is concerned, she is often lazy and selfish, making excuses for her faults while being confused whenever Lump is disagreeable. But these are portrayed not as evil traits so much as human ones. It is interesting to note that the omniscient narrator refers to the witch primarily as “the woman”. This is partly due to her true name being a cosmic mystery not meant for mortal ears, but I think it also emphasizes the fact that she may be practically a deity in her own right, but she is also still a woman. She can easily make sure Lump has food and shelter, but as she comes to see too late the result of giving him little else, all she is left with is an angry and bitter child, and she, for all her power, is left feeling truly vulnerable and full of guilt and regret:

                “‘That child is spoiled,’ said the cat from his comfortable perch in a stone niche near the hearth.
                The woman looked at him crossly and was about to make an objection, but a tiredness came over her suddenly, of the sort well-known to those whose children have not turned out as well as they had expected, and she simply sighed.
                ‘I think you are right, Falance,’ she admitted. ‘I cannot see why, however. The boy has had everything that is proper for a child—food, warmth, shelter, well-fitting shoes—’
                ‘What we say,’ the cat said, interrupting this litany, ‘is cuff and cuddle cats the kitten. This child has had little of either cuffs or cuddles.’
                ‘That is untrue,’ said the woman. ‘I have spent many hours with him, baby and boy.’
                ‘Yes, and when he grew fretful, or you bored, you called for Ysul.’
                ‘What! Am I to be taught mothering by an old tomcat?’
                For once, the cat did not flinch; cats have a keen sense of who has the moral advantage, and, having once seized it, he was not about to give it up. He ignored her angry gaze. ‘In fact,’ he continued, ‘you are not fond of him, or rather you are as fond of him as you are of everything. His little achievements bring a smile to your lips, but it is the same smile you bestow on the first iris or a passing badger. You are correct that I am no expert, yet I don’t think this is the usual case among mothers of men. Instead, they dote. With us, it sometimes happens that a mother will ignore one of her kits, and it will grow into a runt, snarling and ill-mannered, yet still it has its brothers and sisters to heap among, be warmed by, to play with and learn from. You will observe that Lump has never had this chance. He has no sibs, nor even friends of his own kind.’
                ‘I never had friends!’ the woman blurted out in a strange, harsh tone that surprised both her companion and her.
                Then they were both silent for a period, while she tended to her pastry. She made a tray of strawberry tarts—Lump’s favorite—stoked the fire, and popped them into the oven. Wiping her hands, she settled herself in a chair facing the hearth. When she spoke, her voice was weary. ‘I suppose you will say I should have known better. You will say you warned me of this.’
                ‘No cat would be so rude,’ said Falance. ‘You followed your heart, which, despite all, cannot be entirely ill. Nevertheless, it is a fair puzzle. Something must be done. The child is what? Ten years old?’
                ‘Something like that,’ said the woman, suddenly conscious that parents elsewhere were not so vague and made much of their children’s birthdays and held parties to celebrate them. The woman had never thought to do this and regretted it, now. Witches do not attend many parties, and those they do go to are hardly suitable for children.
                ‘Then it is time you thought about what he will do to make his way in the world,’ the cat went on. ‘He cannot stay here forever.’
‘No, of course not,’ the woman murmured.” (p. 62-65)

Of course, Lump is not blameless either. The segments in which he watches his enchanted windows reminds me of the final lines from the second to last chapter of Peter Pan, in which Peter watches the Darling children’s reunion with their parents from afar:

                “There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a strange boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.”

I think this matches Lump’s dilemma perfectly. He, too, is surrounded by marvels that any kid would be lucky enough to even dream about, but no friends to share them with. However, Peter Pan is literally a master of his realm, able to fly and to fight, with no authority figures to thwart him. Lump has no magical abilities whatsoever and is subject to the wishes of both his mother and her servants. But perhaps most pitiful of all, he lacks even the freedom to seek out friends. He is not allowed any contact with other people due to his appearance, partly for his protection, but then he has no idea he is ugly. Not only does this delude him into believing he is handsome while humans are deformed, but it gives him an increasingly dangerous superiority complex. The continual denial of his desires and reminding of his weaknesses only further intensify his loneliness—and eventually, his egotism.

                “A year passed. Lump was nearly eleven, the age when to ordinary children the company of friends is the dearest thing in the world. But Lump had no friends. Now, such children will often invent companions; in Lump’s case this natural tendency was supported by his two magic windows. [. . .]
                [. . .] Lump could hear the chuffing and pawing of the camels in the stockade and an occasional raucous bleat. A tall narrow door opened at the side of the inn, and a small figure emerged—a boy of about Lump’s own age, dressed in a white robe and a white skullcap. Lump watched as the boy fed and watered the camels. Lump seemed to be right behind him as he worked and murmured to the beasts. ‘I don’t speak your language,’ Lump said in a low urgent voice, ‘but I know so much about you. I know your name is Djer and you have two sisters, Mahli and Zera, and your mother is Leila. You father is dead, killed by bandits, you believe, and you help your mother run the caravanserai. It is a lonely place; and while many people pass through, no one stays for long, and the friendships you make are only passing ones. You are lonely, I know; sometimes at night you come out by yourself and sing to the camels, playing music on a harp with two strings. How I wish you would look up just once and see me! Please look up! I am so lonely, too!’
                And then it seemed that Djer did look up, and that their eyes met and that Djer smiled at him, but it was only that a hawk had flown across the dunes, as it were, behind Lump, where he could never look. Then the bird flew over the caravanserai and away, and Djer lifted his empty bucket and went back inside.
                Lump could have wept with vexation. [. . .]
                [. . .]
                ‘Farewell, my friends,’ he whispered through the glass; his breath clouded over the dancing scene like fog from the sea. Here was the real reason that he had wanted to learn magic, to command dragons and flying carpets, as he had seen and heard in the stories Bagordax had caused to play on his walls. Yes, he was a prisoner, too, a handsome prince cast away from all he loved.” (p. 71-74)

And these feelings only get worse as Lump grows into adulthood. By this time, he is much wiser regarding human nature and, as such, much more painfully aware and self-conscious of his looks. But this isn’t the only thing that hinders his social skills. Magic has enabled him to see the best and most beautiful the world has to offer. As a result, his views have been warped and his tastes spoiled for its plainer, less awe-inspiring side. So when a genuine opportunity to make friends with honest, caring people does come his way, he can’t bring himself to take those hands for fear of either being rejected or appearing common and weak, as has been done to him so often before.

Like many coming-of-age and self-discovery stories, this book isn’t easy to talk about without giving too much away. What makes The Witch’s Boy so masterful isn’t only its stunning, mystical, and romantic imagery and characters we want to see succeed in spite of their flaws and mistakes. It has a captivating way of using fantasy as a lens with which younger readers can explore issues faced by children and adults every day, from parenthood and familial relationships to social interaction, childhood trauma, and healing through personal reflection and forgiveness. Just as one doesn’t have to be young, beautiful, or even human in order to embark on a hero’s journey, one doesn’t have to be magic to make their own in their walk of life.

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

All book excerpts are from The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber (published by HarperTempest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers).

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“Court and Page” - Silent Partner
“Meditation Impromptu 02” by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source:http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100162
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
“Window Demons” – roljui

Watch the original preview and episode videos here!

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Michael Gruber on Wikipedia

Michael Gruber's Official Website

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"Mary Ann, Mary Ann!": Wonderland (2006/2008, Ages 13 and Up)

3/31/2019

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- Also found in Ages 13-18

(Original post date: 1/4/19)

In my humble opinion, nonsense in fiction can be little fickle. There’s a very fine between delightfully random and inanely disjointed. And yet the great irony of it all is that, even at its most absurd, some of the best fictional nonsense still follows at least some rules in order to effectively tell its story. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in the case of the granddaddy of literary nonsense: Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. As silly as this book is, it still works partly because of the episodic format of its chapters. Moreover, smaller bits that are introduced but never fully explained (if at all) are acceptable because they are interesting enough to engage the audience while being minor enough to be abandoned without disrupting or ruining the overall narrative. That being said, there have been countless tales that have since attempted to further explore some of those bits. One tale in particular revolves around a single, burning question: just who exactly is Mary Ann, the servant girl for whom the White Rabbit had mistaken Alice?

The inhabitants of Wonderland are still reeling from the chaos and destruction wrought by the creature now dubbed the “Alice Monster.” Indeed, the Queen of Hearts is in an even fouler mood than ever. But thanks to some “hints” from Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum—who are trying to weasel their way out of an execution—she now has the perfect scape-goat on which to vent her rage: her very own herald, the White Rabbit! After all, why was the “Monster” trying so hard to find him? And just what exactly was she doing inside his house? As it just so happens, Mary Ann, the Rabbit’s obsessive compulsive but unfailingly devoted housemaid, returns to her master just in time for the Queen to brand the Rabbit a traitor and give her infamous order “Off with his head!” And now Mary Ann finds herself on the run along with him! As she strives to keep both their heads on their shoulders, Mary Ann comes to learn not only more about the notorious “Alice Monster”, but of “The Curious”, a mysterious cult that worships her — and who now wish for the similar-looking Mary Ann to finish what the “Monster” began and dethrone the criminally insane Queen once and for all, no matter how reluctant she is.

Having been published by Disney Press, the art style of Wonderland is heavily influenced by that of Disney’s animated film version of Alice in Wonderland. But the key difference between Sonny Liew’s illustrations and the frames of the 1951 film is the former’s much more visually blatant wackiness. Colors range from washed-out to very bright, its patterns as erratic and unpredictable as many of the comic panels’ shapes. The characters have highly exaggerated anatomies, with stick-thin limbs and huge, bulbous heads and bodies (and this is even when they’re not mutating from inhaling shrinking dust or sampling growth-inducing mushrooms). There is also Liew’s sketchy outlines, which give the environment a very scratchy and squiggly appearance, both insubstantial and solid at once. This works especially well during some of the more action-filled scenes in that the ensuing chaos makes the characters appear even less physically defined than usual, further emphasizing the bizarre nature of this world.

Along with all the original characters, like the proper and paranoid White Rabbit, the devilishly cheery Cheshire Cat, and the tea-crazed March Hare and Mad Hatter, we are introduced to some new ones, like the long-lost Queen of Spades. As skinny and serious as the Queen of Hearts is fat and fanatical, she provides much of the backward-thinking and pun-filled wordplay that Carroll’s work is known for, made all the more hilarious here because of her brutally brunt, stone-faced delivery, as if from a chronically irked Easter Island statue:

PAGE 70

PANAL 4: MARY ANN, A BAR OF SOAP STUFFED SQUARELY IN HER MOUTH, STARES UP DUMBFOUNDED AT THE AT THE QUEEN OF SPADES, WHO TOWERS OVER HER AS SHE SPEAKS.

                QUEEN OF SPADES: If you’re to be my maidservant now, you will have to learn a few simple rules of behavior befitting a girl of your station. First of all, you should slouch a bit, and stand pigeon-toed.

PAGE 71

PANAL 1: THE QUEEN OF SPADES PACES AS SHE CONTINUES LECTURING, MARY ANN WATCHING ATTENTIVELY, WHILE THE KING OF SPADES DOZES OFF ON ONE SIDE AND THE TREACLE WELL SISTERS WHISPER TOGETHER ON THE OTHER.

              QUEEN OF SPADES: A proper lady-in-waiting is quiet and polite. When she must speak, she does so softly and keeps her mouth mostly shut. Have the decency to look at the ground and twiddle your fingers nervously.

PANAL 2: THERE IS A CLOSE-UP OF THE QUEEN OF SPADES’ FACE; HER EYELIDS ARE TIGHTLY NARROWED AND HER LIPS ARE BARELY CRACKED OPEN.

               QUEEN OF SPADES: When I call for silence, you shall bring me bushels and cartloads of it. I wish to acquire great storehouses of silence so that I never run out of it.

[. . .]

PAGE 76

PANAL 1: MARY ANN GAZES CURIOUSLY AT THE KING OF SPADES, WHO HIS SITTING ON A ROCK IN DROWSY SILENCE A FEW FEET AWAY.

                MARY ANN: Why does your husband say nothing?

PANAL 2: THE QUEEN OF SPADES LOOKS AT HER HUSBAND, AS PRIM AS EVER.

            QUEEN OF SPADES: He is my mate. We share our thoughts, our dreams, our opinions, our voice . . .

PANAL 3: THE KING OF SPADES STARES SLEEPILY INTO SPACE, HIS EXPRESSION AS STILL AND BLANK AS A STATUE.

                 QUEEN OF SPADES: And right now I’m using all those things.

But our primary new character is our young protagonist. Part of what makes this story so fun are the many ways in which Mary Ann, arguably the most human resident in Wonderland, treats all the ridiculousness around her like just another day at work, as it were, while still portraying the kind of insanity that makes even the other Wonderlandians seem sensible by comparison. Her greatest quirk—and weakness—being her absolutely frenetic obsession with cleanliness. I think the White Rabbit puts it best when she gathers up the filthy dishes from the Mad Tea Party for a dangerously good scrub with an immense beam on her face:

PAGE 92

PANAL 1: THE QUEEN OF SPADES, ANNOYED, AND THE WHITE RABBIT, RESIGNED, WATCH MARY ANN FROM THEIR SEATS AT THE TABLE.

                QUEEN OF SPADES: Can’t you do something about her?

                WHITE RABBIT: It would be a shame to make her stop.

PANAL 2: MARY ANN IS HUNCHED OVER AROUND A RUNNING FOUNTAIN AND WATER BASIN FILLED WITH SUDS; SHE IS BEAMING WITH IMMENSE PLEASURE AS SHE FERVENTLY WASHES THE DISHES.

             WHITE RABBIT: She’s so happy when she’s scrubbing something to within an inch of its life . . .

But it is through Mary Ann’s reactions to Alice and her infamous deeds that Tommy Kovac really paints for us a picture of her character. It’s almost as if, as soon the White Rabbit admits his mistaking Alice for her, Mary Ann is cursed to be constantly compared to her in almost every way from that moment on, and not only because of her appearance:

PAGE 21

PANAL 2: THE CHESHIRE CAT LEERS AT MARY ANN AND THE WHITE RABBIT.

              CHESHIRE CAT: Seems you’ve been incriminated, bunny rabbit. For suspicious dealings with the Alice Monster . . .

PANAL 3: THE WHITE RABBIT STAMMERS AT THE CHESHIRE CAT WHILE MARY ANN LOOKS AT THE WHITE RABBIT IN CONFUSION.

                WHITE RABBIT: But, I--

                MARY ANN: Monster? What’s this about?

PANAL 4: THE WHITE RABBIT WAVES HIS HANDS FRANTICALLY AT MARY ANN.

              WHITE RABBIT: While you were gone, there was an imposter here! She wrecked some of the rooms, and shot the grounds-keeper out of the chimney like a pea out of a peashooter.

PANAL 5: MARY ANN STARES AT THE WHITE RABBIT, STUNNED, WHILE FEATHER LOOKS ON FROM OUT OF HER APRON POCKET.

                WHITE RABBIT: I thought she was you at first!

PAGE 22

PANAL 1: MARY ANN PUTS HER HANDS TO HER CHEST, LOOKING DEEPLY HURT.

                MARY ANN: Thought she was me?

PANAL 2: THE WHITE RABBIT TURNS HIS HEAD AWAY WITH SOME FRUSTRATION WHILE WAVING A HAND DISMISSIVELY AT MARY ANN.

                WHITE RABBIT: Well, she was a girl like you, and was wearing some sort of dress, and she had some sort of hair on her head—I DON’T KNOW! I suppose I was distracted at the time.

PANAL 3: MARY ANN LOOKS AT HERSELF IN THE FULL-SIZE MIRROR WHILE THE WHITE RABBIT CONTINUES TO MUMBLE WITH HIS ARMS CROSSED.

                MARY ANN: Am I that nondescript? I know I’m just a maid, but . . .

The more Mary Ann tries to distance herself from any association with such a trouble-making monster, the more we see how similar they really are to each other. Much like Alice, Mary Ann does her best to be reliable, honest, helpful, and obedient. But she also isn’t afraid to speak her mind when she believes something isn’t right. Plus, it really is funny to hear an “insane” person calling what we would consider a sane person “insane”:

PAGE 95

PANAL 5: THE MAD HATTER ADDRESSES MARY ANN AND THE WHITE RABBIT, THE LATTER FROWNING WITH HIS HANDS ON HIS HIPS, WHILE THE MARCH HARE POURS HIMSELF ANOTHER CUP OF TEA.

                 MAD HATTER: You know, we had another young lady come by for tea just a little while ago. That was before she outgrew herself and ended up on court. Might she be a friend of yours?

                WHITE RABBIT: So! The Alice Monster was here, too, was she?

PAGE 96

PANAL 1: THE MARCH HARE PUTS A SIDEWAYS HAND TO HIS FACE.

              MARCH HARE: You know, they say she’s been sighted in Looking-Glass House. But don’t tell the Queen of Hearts!

PANAL 2: THE MARCH HARE HOLDS OUT SOME CARDS WITH RED HEARTS ON THEM WHILE MARY ANN, THE WHITE RABBIT, AND THE MAD HATTER LOOK ON.

                MARCH HARE: She has followers, now, who call themselves, “The Curious.”

              MARY ANN: Why would anyone follow a monster?

PANAL 3: THE MARCH HARE PUTS A HAND TO HIS CHIN IN THOUGHT AS HE SPEAKS, WITH THE MAD HATTER BESIDE HIM.

                  MARCH HARE: There are those who quite liked the way she called the Queen’s guard “nothing but a pack of cards . . .” And she’s not afraid to call “Nonsense!” when she sees it.

                   MAD HATTER: Oh, poppycock! That would be like yelling “Sky!” every time you look up!

PANAL 4: FEATHER [MARY ANN’S LIVING FEATHER DUSTER] FLIES UP AS HE CHIPS IN, WHILE MARY ANN REACTS ANGRILY.

                FEATHER: I think this Alice Monster sounds more interesting all the time!

                MARY ANN: I think she sounds terrible and rude! If every girl were a back-talking, stuck-up little prat, Wonderland would be a jagged place indeed!

Also like Alice, just because Mary Ann is a little girl subject to the whims of powerful “adults” doesn’t mean she appreciates insults to her intelligence and dignity. And just because she’s a servant doesn’t mean she is never curious about the world around her, wondering how it might shape her and her future. Even in a place where logic is said to have no place, she only wants what any other logical person would want: to be herself:

PAGE 118

PANAL 3: MARY ANN AND FEATHER WANDER THE DUST DESERT, MAKING THEIR WAY THROUGH THE SCATTERED AND HALF-BURIED FURNITURE.

                FEATHER: So, in this dream you had about the Alice Monster, was she doing all sorts of savage, exciting things?

PAGE 119

PANAL 1: MARY ANN TWIDDLES HER FINGERS AS SHE DOES HER BEST TO EXPLAIN TO FEATHER.

              MARY ANN: Well, not really. It was both strange and dull at the same time. In her world, the animals all went about naked, and none of them talked at all! Even the flowers were silent. There were kings and queens, but they were just regular, stupid gits.

PANAL 2: MARY ANN SPREADS OUT HER ARMS AS FEATHER LOOKS ON AND LISTENS.

               MARY ANN: But I—I mean, Alice, lived in a big, beautiful house, and she had more pretty dresses than you can imagine.

PANAL 3: MARY ANN WALKS ON, HANDS BEHIND HER BACK, WHILE FEATHER FLIES AHEAD OF HER; IN THE BACKGROUND, UNNOTICED, THE GRIFFIN SITS BEFORE THE MOCK TURTLE, WHO IS SPEAKING FROM ATOP A ROCK.

               MARY ANN: She never had to wash or mend, or scrub the floors. And nobody told her what to do. At least, not much. And when they did, she didn’t have to listen!

                FEATHER: She sounds spoiled! Boy, that’d be the life, eh?

PANAL 4: MARY ANN TUCKS HER HAIR BEHIND HER EAR, LOOKING THOUGHTFUL; A GIANT SQUID SWIMS IN THE OCEAN IN THE DISTANCE.

               MARY ANN: I suppose. She had two sisters, and she was prettier than either of them. But she had nothing to do all day, except look at herself in the mirror and play with those creepy silent animals . . .

[. . .]

PAGE 124

PANAL 3: MARY ANN LOOKS AT THE GROUND GLUMLY; THE WHITE RABBIT TRIES TO ENCOURAGE HER.

[. . .]

                WHITE RABBIT: Oh, Mary Ann, I think you’d be delightful at rebellion! It would be so orderly and tidy!

PANAL 4: MARY ANN SMILES GRATEFULLY AT THE WHITE RABBIT.

                 MARY ANN: Thank you, Master Rabbit. That means a lot to me.

           WHITE RABBIT: And doesn’t every girl want to be a queen or a princess?

PAGE 125

PANAL 1: MARY ANN GAZES INTO THE DISTANCE WITH A SMALL SMILE, HER HANDS ON THE POLE END OF HER LARGE FAN.

                 MARY ANN: I have my dreams. Like any girl, I suppose. But I think I really just want to be humble, little Mary Ann.

As a side-note, I kind of wish the title was different, as it doesn’t feel very original, nor does it do its narrative justice in either description or engagement. But, oh well. Truth be told, I personally wouldn’t recommend readers getting into this graphic novel unless they’ve at least seen Disney’s animated film beforehand. Although, I think being familiar with both the film and Carroll’s novel would help readers get the most out of it because there are specific elements from both versions found throughout, and knowing those would make the experience more enriching, and certain segments and cameos, for lack of a better way to put it, make more sense. Not unlike many contemporary stories based on fairy tales or century-old classics, Wonderland is much more plot-driven with more fleshed out and relatable characters than the story that inspired it. And yet it beautifully retains the poetic nonsense that made the original Alice so beloved. Liew takes the visual elements of Wonderland and exaggerates them even further, and Kovac very creatively expands on Carroll’s characters, especially one who was literally nothing but a name before, while not forcing too much unnecessary depth on them. If the Wonderland that came before has never been known to sweat details or take itself too seriously, then there’s no reason why this one should, at least to an extent. And in the end, for all the right reasons, we don’t have to care in the slightest.

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

All book excerpts are from Wonderland by Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew (complete 2008 compilation edition, published by Disney Press, an impirnt of Disney Book Group).

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“Circus Tent - Netherworld Shanty” by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source:http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100769
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
“The Cannery” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
“Mysterioso March” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) is licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Watch the original preview and episode videos here!

Listen to the episode here!

Disney on Wikipedia

Tommy Kovac's Official Website

Sonny Liew's Official Website

Tommy Kovac on Amazon

Sonny Liew on Wikipedia

Wonderland on Goodreads

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Buy Wonderland on Amazon

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"I am the Prophet, the Man, the Beast": Felidae (1989/1994, MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY)

3/31/2019

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- Also found in Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema, Adaptations, Retellngs, and Old Tales in New Light, Animation, and MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY

(Original post date: 10/5/18)

WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF ANIMAL CRUELTY AND THEMES OF RELIGIOUS FANATICISM, RACISM, AND GENOCIDE. READER/RESEARCHER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

I once read a phrase in a book years ago that has stuck with me ever since. This is because it perfectly sums up a sentiment I have regarding pets: “I’m not anti-dog, I’m just pro-cat.” I don’t dislike dogs, but in general they’re a little too hyper for me, while cats are calmer and more peaceful. But there’s another reason I love cats. Now, I am not a historian or an animal expert, but from what I understand, cats seem to have contributed much more to world history, mythology, and culture, from the illustrious cat worshiping practices of ancient Egypt, to the ridiculously popular cat memes and videos that dominate the internet today. Though cats are already placed on a high pedestal for their intelligence, grace, and beauty, what if there is still more to them than meets the eye? Are cats truly no different from other animals that seem to live only to eat, sleep, play, and mate until they die? Or do their minds hold secrets and mysteries more wondrous—or terrible—then we feeble-minded humans could ever have imagined?

Much to his eternal dismay and chagrin, Francis, a domestic housecat in 1980’s Germany, is forced to move with his well-meaning but dimwitted owner, Gustav—again. However, this quickly becomes the least of his problems. In his new backyard he comes across a grisly sight: the body of a fellow cat, his throat brutally slashed. And this is not the first; several cats have been turning up dead for weeks. While this could easily be dismissed as just another senseless killing by a human, Francis, being the observant, detail-oriented intellectual that he is, is not so sure. Certain that a feline serial killer is on the loose, he begins to gather information from the other cats of his new neighborhood: some kindly, some crazy, but all broken in some way. And as Francis digs ever deeper into this blood-soaked mystery, he comes to realize that the answer may not only threaten the survival of his kind, but challenge the very cycle of life itself.

Though I watched Felidae long before I read it, I watched video reviews before even that. It wasn’t until I read the book that I realized how easily the adaptation can be seen as little more than a strange and obscure German film for fans of cult horror or adult animation. While the movie is certainly one of the better and more faithful book-to-film adaptations that I’m familiar with, this is one time when I think it really is best to experience the book along with it to really get the story’s full effect.

One of the film’s most striking traits is its surprisingly light and pleasant animation for a plot this dark and disturbing. Movies like A Scanner Darkly, Akira, or Fritz the Cat may be cartoons, but their styles and presentations still have a very adult aesthetic. In contrast, I still find it weirdly unnerving to see these Don Bluth-esque cats laying mutilated in their own gore. Definitely a unique, if questionably palatable, choice on the film-makers’ part.

Needless to say, this talking cat detective story is far from cute.

The cats of this universe are depicted as being just as intelligent, if not more, than humans. But this is not the only way Akif Pirinçci makes his cats look superior. He also endows them with a sort of holiness in their speech and social customs. For one, the cats refer to each other not as “cats”, but as “brothers” and “sisters”. And it’s established that the real reason cats don’t talk to humans has nothing to do with language; simply put, to do so is sacrilege. As Francis quotes on page 261:

                “The untouchable may not exchange a single word with the impure, even if they’re in danger of dying.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean they are above using the same crass and sarcastic vocabulary as many human adults. One prominent slang term they use is “can opener”, to describe humans whose only supposed “function” is to open cat food cans. These cats are more than well-versed in human objects, trends, and concepts. Our especially clever and inquisitive narrator, Francis, often peppers his witty remarks with pop culture or history references to get his point across:

NOVEL
- “In comparison to this maltreated creature, even Quasimodo would have had a realistic chance of becoming a male model.” (pg. 18)
- “He was gone! He had disappeared into thin air, had long ago parted for the Yellow Submarine Land from which he may well have come.” (pg. 151)
- “From hippie life on Crete to yuppie stress in Manhattan, from coca-leaf chewing to Calvin Klein jeans, Archie had already done it and much more, except perhaps not joining the NASA boys for their moon landing, which, to be honest, does disappoint me.” (pg. 24-25)

FILM
- “This parquet freak and professional trend-setter is Archibald Philip Magenta, known as Archie. He was at Woodstock.”
- “Have we come to the house of an art collector, or a pimp?”
- “What I was watching wasn’t exactly a scene out of The Aristocats.”

I think Francis’ chemistry with local cat Bluebeard, his new “partner”, as it were, also adds to the noir vibe. Personality-wise, Bluebeard strikes me as the Daisuke Jigen to Francis’ Lupin III: blunt and quick-tempered, with an ironic sense of humor, but also possessing a cynical, yet pragmatic wisdom that can sometimes make Francis seem almost naïve and idealistic by comparison. Yet despite a harsh attitude that matches his severely disfigured façade, Bluebeard proves an invaluable guide and loyal friend to Francis:

NOVEL
         ‘Another cold sack?’ I asked him, not wanting to beat around the bush.
       I caught him by surprise, but in seconds he had already composed himself, assuming his stoic Humphrey Bogart look.
         ‘A cold sack,’ he confessed after a brief pause.
         [. . .]
       ‘What member of our god-fearing community got it this time? Stop, wait a minute. It was a guy, wasn’t it? Just like the other four corpses.’
         Now he showed open astonishment.
         ‘How the hell did you find that out?’
         ‘Just a guess.’
        [. . .]
       The monster limped into the room, snorted, then crouched down beside me with a worried expression on his face.
         ‘This time it was good old Deep Purple who said his last good-bye. His neck looks so bad you’d think someone used it to try out his new ice pick. As far as I’m concerned, they could have turned that dimwit [A**hole] into dog food, but all these dudes kicking the bucket is beginning to give me the jitters. Who knows, maybe the guy with the strange hobby will someday have the pleasure of sinking his teeth into my own neck.’
          [. . .]
          ‘Where’s Deep Purple’s corpse now?’
      ‘In Peter Fonda’s garage. Do you want to go on with your clever investigation?’
          ‘If you have nothing against it. How about showing me where it is?’
      ‘Why not,’ he said, yawning, his inimitable coolness having since returned [. . .]. He turned to go, but before he could quite get into gear, I caught up with him with a quick leap and looked deep down into his one uninjured eye, the eye that sparkled all the more brightly because it was the only one he had left.
        ‘You never did tell me your name, wiseass,’ I said. He smiled wearily, then brushed lightly past me out the balcony door.
         ‘Bluebeard,’ he said outside. ‘But don’t ask me now who my can opener is, otherwise I’ll be the one who’ll have to puke.’ (pg. 32-36)
______________________

FILM
BLUEBEARD: Agh!
FRANCIS: Another killing?
BLUEBEARD: (In gruff surprise.) How the hell did you . . . ? Yes, there’s been another one.
FRANCIS: Let me guess. This latest victim’s also a tom. (Lifts a leg to scratch himself.) Just like the other four stiffs.
BLUEBEARD: Smartass. How the hell did you know that?
FRANCIS: A guess, but it’s an educated one.
BLUEBEARD: Anyway, this time it’s tight-ass Deep Purple that’s taken out his last rat. (Run his claws across his neck to demonstrate as he speaks.) His throat looks exactly as though someone decided to test an ice pick to see if it works.
[. . . ]
FRANCIS: Where is Deep Purple’s corpse now? Can you show me?
BLUEBEARD: (A smile in his voice.) Sure, why not?
FRANCIS: (Curiously.) Hey, what’s your name, smartass?
BLUEBEARD: Bluebeard. And I’ve had more babes in my time than Henry VIII. (Bursts into wheezing laughter.)

But as logical as Francis is, he is not spared from the nightmares that plague him as the murders multiply. Whether they are as bloody and demented as anything Clive Barker could dream up, or so strange and ethereal as to shatter the heart, neither in the novel nor the movie does Pirinçci hold back on the creativity, the viciousness, or, most importantly, the symbolism. Throughout Francis’ quest for the truth, in his visions as well as in real life, a key question is raised: What if, due to all the centuries of domestication, mankind destroyed more within cats than just their ancient primeval instincts? What if they have fallen from grace the way Adam and Eve did?

NOVEL
         “‘At last I have found you,’ I said. In my excitement and joy, I was on the brink of tears.
          ‘Naturally,’ [the murderer] said with an unfathomable deep sadness in his voice. [ . . .] I am the one you’ve been looking for all this time: I am the murderer, I am the Prophet, [. . .] I am the eternal riddle, I am the man and the beast—and I am Felidae. All of these I am in one person and more, much more.’
           [. . .]
        The veil of mist lifted to present the white murderer anew in all his splendor. He rose in slow motion from his seat, turned toward me, and gave me a faraway look, as if he were gazing at me from the mysterious depths of the universe.
        ‘Everything that ever was and ever will be no longer has any meaning, Francis,’ he said, and his sad voice echoed into infinity. ‘The only thing that’s important is that you now change sides and come to us, come with us.’
        [. . .]
       The huge army of my brothers and sisters in the background affirmed in unison:
    ‘Come with us, Francis! You’ll find something better than death everywhere!’
      The murderer turned away from me and floated over to the others. Then he became a tiny part of the crowd and looked back once again.
       ‘Come with us, Francis,’ he insisted. ‘Come with us on a long, wonderful trip.’
Now they turned their backs on me and wandered leisurely into the thickening mist.
        ‘Where are you going?’ I called after them.
       ‘To Africa! To Africa! To Africa!’ they called out with one voice until they gradually disappeared into the mist.
      ‘And what will we find there?’ I still wanted to know.
     ‘Everything we lost, Francis, everything we lost . . .’ I heard them whispering. But they were now lost to sight; they had already become one with the magical mist.
      Slowly, an unbearable sadness filled me, because I had not followed them, because I had been afraid to set out on the long journey, because I was now completely alone. Africa! It sounded so alluring, so mysterious, so exciting. Everything you ever dreamed about was there, my unerring instincts whispered to me. Africa! The lost paradise, El Dorado, the Promised Land—where once, long ago, everything had its beginning. Yet Africa was so unimaginably far away, and I was only a comfort-loving, four-legged animal used to thinking in terms of short distances. The nocturnal songs of the gods were strange to me; so, too, the hot wind of the savanna. Never had I slept under a canopy of stars, and never had I set foot in the sacred jungle. Africa! But where was Africa? In any case, not in me, not in my yearnings, not in my heart. It was somewhere else, very far from me, irrevocably far from me.
          And yet:
       ‘Take me with you.’ I wept quietly to myself. ‘Take me with you, my brothers and sisters . . .’” (pg. 173-174)
______________________

FILM
The Dream Cat/Murderer turns to look at Francis.
FRANCIS: (Excitedly.) I’ve been searching for you!
DREAM CAT/MURDERER: (Softly.) Yes, of course, clever Francis. I’m the Prophet. I’m the human. I’m the beast. And I am also . . . Felidae. Come with us, Francis. All that has been, all there will be has no meaning anymore. Come with us, Francis.
DREAM CAT ARMY: (Simultaneously, as one by one they transform into tiny lights and float away towards the sky.) Come with us! Wherever you go, you find something preferable to death.
DREAM CAT/MURDERER: (As he, too, turns into a light and joins the others.) Come with us, on our long, wonderful journey.
FRANCIS: (Sinking into the clouds he’s standing on.) What will we find when we arrive?
DREAM CAT ARMY: Everything that we’ve lost, Francis.

But perhaps even more prominent: what if cats, or any animals, really, due to man’s abuse and supremacy, became more like man, to the point where they essentially became man, in all his sick, stupid, and tainted glory?

While it may be easy to compare this to works like Richard Adams’ Watership Down or George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Felidae stands out from other non-sugar-coated critiques of mankind’s faults through the eyes of intelligent animals. On a much deeper and more complex level than I’ve seen in either a gritty crime drama or an animal adventure tale, it frames the concept of racial superiority in the form of questions regarding the supposedly inherent nature of a given species, and even the very nature of God and a living creature’s place in the universe. Felidae is an enthralling detective story with many more mysteries than simply “Whodunit?” Not the least of which is: Do we own our pets . . . or do they own us?

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“Day of Recon” - Max Surla/Media Right Productions
“The Great Unknown” by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/

All book excerpts are from Felidae by Akif Pirinçci (1993 translated edition, published by Villard Books, a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.).

All other sound clips are from the English dub of Felidae (produced by TFC Trickompany and Animationstudio; distributed by Senator Film Distribution).

Watch the original preview and episode videos here!

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Felidae (novel) on Wikipedia

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Felidae, the biological family, on Wikipedia

Watch Felidae (original German dub with English subtitles)

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Felidae (novel) on Goodreads

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"Where an Icarus Now Wings . . .": The Darkangel (1982-1990, Ages 13 and Up)

3/31/2019

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- Also found in Ages 13-18

(Original post date: 7/6//18)

I have a rule of thumb regarding creatures of lore: the more versatile the creature, the more interesting I tend to find them. I really do like it when such beings are re-imagined, readapted, and/or placed in scenarios less than traditional for them in order to create new stories, so long as it’s artistically refreshing or though-provoking and not completely stupid. It goes without saying that one of the most common creatures to which countless authors have tried to do this very thing—with varying degrees of success—is the vampire. In a Modern Fantasy course I took at LSC back in the Fall of 2007, I studied the horror novel Necroscope by Brian Lumley. Though ultimately not a personal favorite, I still found it very intriguing in how it portrayed a classic monster I was familiar with in a way that meshed very well with its 20th century setting, changing its vampire just enough to make it feel original while at the same time staying faithful to the “source material”, so to speak. And so, for my Midterm assignment, I decided to write about how vampires have been portrayed in more recent fiction. As luck would have it, I found this YA fantasy series literally just in time for me to start developing my essay. And the world of this vampire was far more unique then I could have imagined.

Aeriel, a young slave girl from the land of Terrain, is burning for revenge after her mistress and friend, Eoduin, is kidnapped by a vampyre in order to become his new bride. Upon confronting him, she naturally proves no match for him, and is taken away to be a servant to his thirteen “wives”, skeletal mummy-like wraiths that have all lost their blood, hearts, and souls to the vampyre—and one of which is the ill-fated Eoduin. But in spite of her grief, Aeriel can’t help but be enamored by the godlike beauty that masks the vampyre’s cruelty, and intrigued by the spark of goodness and vulnerability she sees in him. She comes to learn that the vampyre is, in fact, not yet a true darkangel. Only when he takes one last bride, his fourteenth, will his “mother”, a lorelei or water demon known as the White Witch, take the souls he will offer her in tribute and complete his transformation. Though horrified by this knowledge, Aeriel finds herself torn between her mission to stop the lorelei, and her growing feelings for the vampyre. And even if she is able to save his humanity and his soul without taking his life, Aeriel will still need no less than the power of her world’s sorcerer gods in order to fight the White Witch and her other six vampyre “sons” before they gain the power to spread their eternal darkness and blight across the realm.

As mentioned, the primary monster of this story will be very familiar to most readers in design and temperament, yet not so much so that it can’t count as an original creation. Besides “vampyre” and “darkangel”, this creature has a third name: icarus. In the famous Greek myth, Daedelus made Icarus, his son, a set of wings out of feathers and wax so that he may fly. Pierce’s icarus’ wings are similarly made with the feathers of demonic black birds, magically “sewn” onto him by the lorelei. I love her description of how, when not in flight, the vampyre’s wings drape over his shoulders like a cloak, adding a regal touch to his already divine appearance; not unlike, incidentally, the eponymous heroes of Disney’s Gargoyles series. The beauty of this beast is just as alien but far more treacherous. A striking contrast of cold, dead white and all-consuming darkness, the icarus has the appearance of a fair youth with pale skin, platinum silver hair, and eyes the color of ice, while his wings and clothes are so pitch-black as to give off no sheen, swallowing any and all light that shines upon them.

Pierce puts one other innovative twist on the vampire, as well as on many of the other beings here. The spelling of their names is changed just slightly in order to further differentiate them from their more traditional counterparts. Some examples are simple, like the replacing of “i” with “y” in “vampyre” and “lyon”, and “ph” with “f” in “sfinx”; others are more elaborate, like “duarough” (instead of “dwarf”). On the surface, it’s a small change, and yet it’s incredible how much more exotic it makes the characters and the universe they live in feel.

And speaking of universes, The Darkangel takes place in an alternate reality in which the moon has been terraformed, made habitable to organic matter and living creatures; and the “moon-like” celestial body called Oceanus is implied to be planet Earth. Easily one of this world’s most spectacular sites—and one of my favorites—is the Sea-of-Dust, so-named because the particles that comprise it are so fine that together they surge and flow just like water. Yet they are also stunningly vibrant, as if trillions upon trillions of precious stones have all been crushed into a fluid rainbow of sand, each wave a new color more dazzling than the last.

According to Pierce, the idea for The Darkangel came to her after she read about a dream recounted to Carl Jung, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and founder of analytical psychology. Even in a world as fantastic as this, our protagonist, Aeriel, is no less human than we are, fears and flaws included. In spite of—or perhaps because of—the deadly situation she finds herself in, she has to make a conscious effort to face her enemies and conquer her fears, no matter how grotesque or horrifying. This makes her a compelling foil for many of the other characters she encounters, like the vampyre. Most vampires have traditionally been painted as suave and arrogant by nature; the vampyre Aeriel contends with, though he is both of these things, harbors a surprising childishness underneath his evil, made all the more apparent beside Aeriel’s quiet thoughtfulness and uncertainty. This opens the opportunity, even within such a dangerous and unnatural master/servant relationship, for something that could almost be described as bonding:

     “‘I shall tell you the tale of the Maiden-Eater,’ she told him, and began. The tale was a long one, about a kingdom besieged by a dragon and the king’s daughter who slew it and the young hero who helped her. The vampyre laughed outright when she came to describing the wyrm.
       ‘Big as a cottage?’ he cried at last. ‘With wings? It is evident that you have never seen a firedrake.’ [. . .] The icarus folded his arms and leaned back, looking down on her, his lips curled in contempt. ‘No mere mortal could have killed one single-handed.’
        ‘Her sword was magic,’ said Aeriel.
        ‘The dragon would have killed them both long before she could have used it.’
        Aeriel looked at the ground. ‘You have seen dragons, my lord.’
        ‘Oh yes. My mother keeps a pair as pets.’
       Aeriel looked at him. ‘Your mother?’ she said. The word sounded strange from his tongue.
        His lips twisted again into a smile. ‘I do have a mother,’ he said. ‘How did you suppose I came to be?’ His tone was amused and had no kindness in it. Aeriel dropped her eyes and mumbled something. The icarus pursed his lips a moment, and his look grew farther away. ‘She is very beautiful, my mother.’
       Aeriel let another moment go by before she spoke. ‘What is her name?’ she ventured at last.
     ‘And how would I know that?’ replied the vampyre, affronted. ‘Great personages such as she do not hand out their names so freely.’
        ‘But you are her son,’ insisted Aeriel, softly.
     The vampyre looked suddenly away, and for the first time his cool assurance flagged. ‘She will tell me . . . ,’ he began. ‘She has promised to tell me – when I come of age.’
      ‘And is she . . . like you?’ asked Aeriel, wondering what sort of being mothered vampyres. His hesitation had surprised her.
        ‘You mean a winged icarus?’ he asked, regaining himself, and flexing his coal-dark feathers. They rustled like fine, stiff silk. ‘No, she prefers water to air. She is a lorelai.’
         ‘And she keeps dragons.’
         ‘Yes.’ [. . .]” (The Darkangel, p. 69-70)

To borrow a concept from Joseph Campbell, what makes Aeriel such an endearing and relatable character is her very human wish to “refuse of the call to adventure.” All she really wants is acceptance and love, both from others and within herself, and only by enduring many hardships can she ever hope to achieve this; and even then there is no guarantee that she actually will. Throughout the story, Aeriel receives marvelous gifts and abilities to help her in her quest. As a result, many people, especially the dangerously superstitious ones, begin to see her as a powerful sorceress comparable even to a god. But this only serves to make Aeriel feel increasingly alienated and discouraged rather than confident:

        “[The gargoyle] snarled, doglike, and snapped. It was all over one even shade of grey: even its eyes and teeth and tongue were grey. Its shabby, matted fur stood on end. A collar of yellow metal encircled its throat.
          Aeriel gazed upon it from the hearth. She felt her heart contract. Beside her, Nat shrank against Galnor. Just then the Beast caught sight of Aeriel, its grey eyes wild and wide. It padded toward her.
       Those in its path shrank away from it. Some held daggers, but none dared strike. Aeriel half rose, put her bandolyn from her. She could see the creature’s skeletal ribs, ridges of spine along its back. Her knees gave way.
        ‘Greyling,’ she whispered. ‘Greyling – first gargoyle ever I tamed. What has become of you? You are all bone beneath the skin.’
       For a moment, the gargoyle stared at her, lips pulled back from its broken teeth, tongue loose and lolling. It panted hoarsely. Its tattered ears lay flat against the skull. Aeriel held out her arms to it.
[. . .]
      The Beast bellied down before her on the floor. It crept forward, a strange whine gibbering from its throat. Its curved claws scattered the rushes, scathed the floorboards underfoot. The creature reached her knees. Aeriel bent to stroke it as the grey Beast laid its huge and grisly head upon her lap.
[. . .]
        ‘A sorceress!’ someone whispered then. ‘The storier’s a witch. See how she has charmed the Beast.’
         Aeriel did not look up, was aware of the inn guests shifting uneasily, of Nat staring from Galnor’s arms. The bandits of Arl gazed upon her in outright rage. Aeriel stroked the gargoyle’s heavy, strange head, fingered its matted, thin fur.
      ‘What has become of you?’ she murmured again. ‘You do not look as though you have tasted food since you left me. Eat this.’ She reached into her pack.
         ‘More sorceries,’ a woman cried. ‘What’s that in her hand?’
         ‘A jewel.’
         ‘A dagger – ’
         [. . .]
         Aeriel dusted the fine fuzz from the apricok, held it out. The gargoyle ate eagerly, almost desperately, strained to swallow against the collar about its throat. Its grey tongue slavered, catching the runnels of blood-colored juice. [. . .]
         [. . .]
      ‘Witchery,’ she heard someone muttering. Another voice, across the room, half shouted, ‘She will charm us all.’
       Aeriel looked up then, saw people fall back as she raised her eyes. The hard faces of the Arlish bandits made her skin creep. The gargoyle stared at them, lip twitching into a snarl.
      ‘Come, Greyling,’ she murmured. ‘I do not like our company. Let’s begone.’” (A Gathering of Gargoyles, p. 76-78)

Aeriel wishes only for inner peace, yet not only is she confronted with forces greater than anything she could ever hope to understand, but many of those she would save would rather worship and fear her than befriend and love her. Sacrifice is one of the central themes of this story: sometimes even something as powerful as love can be reduced to a simple hindrance in the face of doing what is best for the world. Is it a sign of truer love to care for the happiness of another, or to ensure the continued existence of creation itself?

To take one magical creature and place it into an nontraditional setting for the sake of a story—and do it well—is no simple feat. To do this with a myriad of creatures in a setting whose theoretical roots stem from science fiction—and do it marvelously—is a sure sign of master storytelling. And all this while crafting a tale of devotion, loss, personal growth, and the finding of one’s identity. Such is the splendor of The Darkangel. Whether you come for the heroine’s journey, the vampyre’s bite, or the moon’s magic, there is something here to stir the imagination of many a fantasy fan.

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

All book excerpts are from The Darkangel and A Gathering of Gargoyles by Meredith Ann Pierce (2007 editions, published by Little, Brown and Company).

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“Dark Memory” - Silent Partner
“Arabian Nightfall” - Doug Maxwell/Media Right Production
“Sovereign” - Kevin MacLeod

Watch the original preview and episode videos here!

Listen to the episode here!

The Darkangel on Wikipedia

Meredith Ann Pierce on Wikipedia

Meredith Ann Pierce's Official Website

The Darkangel on Goodreads

Meredith Ann Pierce on Goodreads

The Darkangel on tvtropes

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"Teach Me to Write the Way You Can!": The City of Dreaming Books (2004, Ages 17 and Up)

3/31/2019

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- Also found in Ages 13-18

(Original post date: 5/4/18)

As I was coming in to one of my college classes one morning in the Spring of 2012, my eye caught the picture of a hardcover book belonging to a classmate. I figured it was a read for fun, as it wasn’t one of our required texts, nor did it look particularly frightening (the class in question being Tales of Terror). Upon my asking, she told me a bit about it and allowed me to study it for a moment. Judging from its premise, as well as its insanely creative illustrations, it seemed right up my alley. When I found the book again later at Barnes & Noble, I opened it to a section that I had missed the first time. There, written on the pages that greeted me was a single four-word sentence. A sinister-sounding one despite my not understanding its context, its font maybe half the size of that of the main text, covering the entirety of pages 148 and 149 in five perfect rows and five perfect columns each. The sentence:

“You’ve just been poisoned.”

Reactionary thought #1: “Tales of Terror . . . ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ . . . We’re reading Salem’s Lot, not The Shining. But still. Reactionary thought #2: “Oh, yeah. This is gonna be good.” I know, I’m weird. But then, I am a writer. ;)

Our story begins on the continent of Zamonia: Dancelot Wordwright, sadly, on his deathbed, his loyal godson and student, Optimus Yarnspinner, at his side. During his final moments of life, he tells Optimus the story of a budding anonymous author who had sent him an unpublished manuscript for him to read long ago. This manuscript, Dancelot claims, is undoubtedly the finest, most perfect piece of writing ever to be put to paper, the work of a bona fide literary genius. Bequeathing this priceless document to Optimus, Dancelot begs him with his dying breath to seek out the writer where he had sent him: Bookholm, where every facet of everyday life is related, established, or dominated solely by books and the written word. But as wondrous and enticing as this place is to the unquenchable imagination of Optimus, it also possesses many dark secrets—a fact he learns too late upon showing his manuscript to the wrong person. Now trapped within the catacombs of Bookholm, Optimus’ quest—and life—are put in jeopardy as he must survive the Fearsome Booklings, murderous Bookhunters, ingeniously deadly book traps, and the mutant monsters that lurk within Bookholm’s underbelly. But even these dangers seem trivial when Optimus is confronted by the legendary being known only as the Shadow King.

Though technically the fourth book in Walter Moers’ Zamonia series, this is the first in a self-contained sub-series, which luckily doesn’t require reading of any prior novels. As of early 2018, only this book and its sequel, The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books, have been released and translated from their original German into English. The third, The Castle of Dreaming Books, is still unreleased, but I very much look forward to seeing what happens after that particularly tantalizing cliffhanger. XD

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Even if I wasn’t already taken in by the idea of a literal paradise for book-lovers, I’d still be thoroughly impressed by Moers’ world-building skills alone. For example, according to the “Translator’s Postscript”, Moers first translated this book – rather painstakingly, he claims – into German from the Zamonian writing of Optimus himself. I adore touches like this because such a connection between an artist and his creation – or an affiliation between one artist and another, as it were – makes even a world as bizarre as this feel more tangible and real. And naturally, no world is complete without exotic locales and fascinating inhabitants. Through his illustrations, Moers shows us his gift for conjuring up such alien but imaginative creatures. From the three-brained Nocturnomaths, the prophetic hags called Ugglies, and the disgustingly obese, multi-armed Shark Grubs, to the fox-like Vulpheads, the pig-like Hogglings, and of course, the race to which Optimus belongs, the reptilian Lindworms.

Speaking of, all this we come to know through the eyes and voice of our narrating protagonist. Often addressing the audience directly as “Dear readers”, Optimus serves as our guide through this strange place as he recounts his story. At the same time, he represents us as well, reflecting our curiosity, fear, and captivation, as we all experience these adventures for the first time along with him, his initial impressions of Bookholm and its literary wonders, for instance, being described with an almost childlike reverence. Plus, let’s be honest. Who among us bookworms hasn’t salivated with breathless delight over the prospect of hundreds upon thousands of books, all ours for the reading, our greatest dilemma being which one to choose first? (Sigh.) So many titles, so little time – not unlike real life.

           “There they were, the ‘Dreaming Books’. That was what the inhabitants of this city called antiquarian books because, from the dealers’ point of view, they were neither truly alive nor truly dead but located in an intermediate limbo akin to sleep. With their existence proper behind them and the prospect of decay ahead, millions upon millions of them slumbered in the bookcases, cellars and catacombs of Bookholm. Only when one of them was picked up and opened by an eager hand, only when it was purchased and borne off, could it awaken to new life. And that was what all these books dreamed of.” (p. 32-33)

[. . .]

“On and on I roamed, and I’m bound to confess that my powers of recall are overtaxed by all the marvels that met my eyes. I felt as if I were walking through the pages of a lavishly illustrated book in which each flash of artistic inspiration was surpassed by the next: walking letters advertising modern printing presses; murals portraying characters from popular novels; antiquarian bookshops whose old tomes literally overflowed into the street; multifarious life forms rummaging in bookcases and vying for their contents; huge Midgard Serpents hauling wagons full of second-hand rubbish driven by uncouth turnipheads who pelted the crowd with trashy old volumes. In this city one was forever having to duck to avoid being hit by a book. The hubbub was such that I caught only snatches of what was being said, but every conversation seemed to revolve around books in one way or another:
                ‘. . . I wouldn’t read a book by an Uggly if you paid me . . .’
                ‘. . . he’s giving a reading in the Gilt-Edged Book Emporium at timber-time tonight . . .’
            ‘. . . a first edition of Aurora Janus’s second novel, the one with the typos in the foreword, for only three pyras . . .’
              ‘. . . if anyone possessed the Orm, it was Aleisha Wimpersleake . . .’
             ‘. . . typographically speaking, a disgrace to the entire printing industry . . .’
        ‘. . . someone ought to write a footnote novel – just footnotes of footnotes, that would be the thing . . .’
                At last I paused at an intersection. Turning on the spot, I counted the bookshops in the streets running off it: there were no less that sixty-one of them. My heart beat wildly. Here, life and literature seemed to be identical: everything centered on the written word. This was my city, my new home.” (p. 40-41)

Among my favorite aspects of this book is some of the most whimsically inventive wordplay I’ve ever seen, especially with regards to this universe’s authors. Many of the names Optimus and the readers come across are actually anagrams of famous real-life authors. The results are as funny as they are outlandish. Just to name a few:

- Lewis Carroll = Sellwi Rollcar
- William Shakespeare = Aliesha Wimperslake
- Charles Dickens = Asdrel Chickens
- John Keats = Honj Steak
- Leo Tolstoy = Elo Snooty

I bet Moers just had a ball making those up. :) On a more character-driven note, and for obvious reasons, I also love the last names of the book-obsessed Lindworms (Yarnspinner, Wordwright, Versewhetter, etc.).

The Lindworms spend their lives cultivating their passion for literature and developing their writing skills in the hopes of becoming masterful story-tellers. Thus, it is in Optimus’ very blood to become a published author. But for all his bibliophilic ambition, he is essentially a dinosaurian Bilbo Baggins. Very much the “adventures make one late for dinner” type, he accepts his godfather’s will out of love for family and fine writing but would prefer to read about a great escapade rather than be in the middle of one. He strives to be sensible and dignified in the increasingly barbaric and insane world he’s found himself in, only to come off as either a near-hysterical coward or a pompous dork. This, however, is key to what initially keeps him from realizing his dream, as well as what I think makes him particularly relatable to any aspiring writers. Like most, Optimus has his own tastes and beliefs regarding what makes good literature. But many of the creatures he meets provide him with a treasure trove of new words, ideas, and writing styles that he never dreamed existed. Moreover, they tell him of the Orm, said to inspire authors to write books so eloquent, and so superb, that to read them is nothing short of Paradise—and which Optimus is quick to reject as superstitious crap. I can’t help but see Optimus’ views of the Orm as a subtle jab at the well-meaning but closed-minded artists whose abilities are undermined simply because they refuse to learn from the masters who came before them, or at least try anything new and expand their horizons, a revelation that Optimus finds most humbling upon entering the Library of the Orm:

                “I strolled along the shelves with my head on one side, checking the titles.
                The Cloud Cuckoo by Bronsar Morello. Recollections of the Day After Tomorrow by Arlon Dumpsey. A Pig in my Poke by Nestroket Krumpf. Never heard of them, neither the books nor their authors. Were these supposed to be literary gems?
                Little Enemies by Minimus Suminim. A Cure for the Incurable by Welgo Tark. Warts on a Toad’s Neck by Horam Quackenbush. Nasal Hairs by Hazel Nares.
                And those were the books on the top shelf! I’d never read any of them. They were the sort of books I usually glanced at in a bookshop and then forgot for ever. [. . .]
                Soft teeth by Carius Molar. The Joys of Gardening by . . . What! I came to a halt and automatically removed a book for the first time.
                It was Dancelot’s masterpiece, cheek by jowl with all this worthless trash! I weighed it in my paws for a while. Then the blood rushed to my head!
                Yes, dear readers, I felt ashamed because I had behaved as ignorantly as all the stupid fools who had spurned Dancelot’s book. What made me so sure that Arlon Dumpsey’s Recollections of the Day After Tomorrow was of no interest? Or Warts on a Toad’s Neck? Had I ever given those books a fair crack of the whip? Perhaps I had just ignored them for the umpteenth time for reasons I myself couldn’t have explained.
                Shame on me! I had to make amends. Taking Warts on a Toad’s Neck from the shelf, I sat down and began to read it.” (p. 404)

Similarly to novels like Harry Potter, at least 98% of this story takes place in one location, but that one location is so rich, so enlivened through its bizarre details, eye-popping visuals, and whatever other surprises occupy it that it always feels new and exciting no matter how often you visit or how much you explore. But honestly, I cannot do this story justice with my words alone—not without massive spoilers anyway. Anyone in love with a good book won’t be spellbound by Optimus’ tale just because of zany creatures and clever book puns. This tale is for you, dear readers, who wonder why you are so spellbound by your favorite books and who strive to find the very best ones whose words bring laughter and tears, terror and peace, questions and answers, or otherwise make you feel, deep in your heart, as if your life will never be the same again. I am curious: do you prefer reading such words, or writing them down?

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

All book excerpts are from The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers (U.S. 2007 edition, published by The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers Inc., Woodstock & New York).

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
“Dreamy Flashback” by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100532
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
“Arabian Bazaar” by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/
“The Story Unfolds” - Jingle Punks

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Walter Moers on Wikipedia

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"Always Guard Your Treasure!": A Book Dragon (1988/1991, Ages 8 and Up)

3/31/2019

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- Also found in Ages 5-12

(Original post date: 3/2/18)

(NOTE: I only just recently realized that I made a mistake on the radio episode for this entry: the 1991 date I state for this book was for the paperback. It was actually first published in April 1988. Apologies for any confusion.)

As it turned out, my search for a buyable copy of this older children’s novel back in the early 2000’s was just as memorable as the novel itself. My first attempt led me a few miles away to where a man was selling vast amounts of books from his huge, stately house. He didn’t have the book I was looking for, but that didn’t make wandering and exploring the rooms of his beautiful home-turned-bookstore any less cool or exciting. (It was the first and last time I went, and I once in a while I find myself wishing I’d taken advantage of the opportunity more.) In any case, the other first this book provided was that it gave me a reason to seriously consider internet shopping. With the help of my parents, it was then that I created my Amazon account and from there, made my very first online purchase. In retrospect, I don’t feel that the way these adventures made my owning and reading of this book all the more enriching is too unlike the life journey of Donn Kushner’s protagonist.

One of the last surviving dragons of the Middle Ages, Nonesuch takes the ways of his kind very seriously, just as his stern but loving grandmother raised him to do. However, she makes it very clear to him that he will never be a true and proper dragon unless he finds himself a treasure to guard. When his grandmother at last leaves him—and after inadvertently gaining the strange ability to alter his size according to his food intake—, Nonesuch sets off in search of his own personal treasure. And find it he does, in the form of a beautiful illuminated manuscript, lovingly crafted by a wise and devoted monk. But then, a theft gone awry traps the now-insect-sized dragon within the pages of his book for 600 years, at which time both he and it are transported to a small east coast bookshop in the 1990’s. Hiding within the nooks and crannies of the bookshelves, Nonesuch never reveals himself to the humans of this new place and time, but in spite of himself, he does take an instant liking to the shop’s kindly owner, Mr. Gottlieb, especially upon seeing the care and respect with which the man treats the dragon’s treasure. And so, when the sleazy and conniving real estate agent, Mr. Abercrombie, threatens the future of the shop, Nonesuch takes it upon himself to also protect Mr. Gottlieb, his loved ones, and all his beloved books, the way that only a dragon can.

The overall tone of this book strikes me as very pleasant and introspective. While I’m not sure that traditional story labels like “coming-of-age” or “self-discovery” would quite effectively describe this, I think it still may prompt readers to reflect on how their past experiences have shaped who they’ve become. One of the more amusing aspects about this story is that many of the animal characters--especially Nonesuch’s grandmother—remark (or in some cases, rant) on other creatures or life in general almost the same way that many people do today regarding dysfunctional family members or politics. Like many a no-nonsense matriarch, the grandmother is the type who believes that she knows what’s what about the world, and woe betide the one who dares suggest otherwise! And yet I could never bring myself to dislike her. Though she often talks like a grouchy old bat, we see through Nonesuch that she is indeed very knowledgeable and only wants to bring her grandson up right. Plus, her curt words actually make a lot of sense, more often than not:

                “And then her mind, which sometimes could not remember events of the same day, took a great leap backwards. In the beginning, his grandmother told Nonesuch, dragons had chosen to separate themselves from the dinosaurs, to whom they were distantly related, except for being so much more intelligent.
[. . .]
[. . .] “‘They were so stupid,’ the grandmother said, wagging her head with a sour, disapproving tone, as if she were speaking of creatures alive now, not those dead for millions of years. ‘No true dragon could ever tolerate such stupidity.’
                ‘But Grandmother,’ Nonesuch said respectfully, for he knew she didn’t like to be contradicted, ‘some of our ancestors have done foolish things. You’ve said so yourself.’ He remembered her past stories. ‘Most of the time,’ he added.
                His grandmother reared back her head and almost rose up on her legs; her dim eyes glowed fiercely. “Foolish? Yes! Improvident? More often than not! Never counted the cost! At times, frankly, insane! But not stupid! Any true dragon could always tally up the costs of its actions, could always foretell that it was heading for disaster, if it chose. But there are more important choices!’
                Then, her eyes sending out pulses of dull light, as pride and sorrow swelled within her, his grandmother told of the valiant, unfortunate Schatzwache, who, from high above the Caucasus mountains, spotted a vein of pure gold exposed by a sudden geological fault. Obedient to the great law of all dragons, ‘Guard your treasure,’ Schatzwache settled down on the shining surface, covering it with his wide wings and long tail, hardly leaving it even to search for food. Finally, when he was so weak that he could no longer fly, he was set upon by scores of knights with two-handed swords and hundreds of bushy-bearded peasants with long axes. He gave a good account of himself before his enemies hacked him to pieces, and his green blood mingled with theirs. But the dragon’s blood burned down into the gold itself, giving it a magnificent blue-green sheen: the ‘dragon-gold’ from which the crowns of all the Czars of Russia were fashioned.
                ‘Yes, guard your treasure,’ the grandmother repeated. ‘A dragon without a treasure is nothing but an ugly flying reptile, with even less dignity than a salamander!’ Then, her nostrils pinched together, she added, ‘With less dignity than a turtle, and with no more than a toad.’
                Nonesuch’s grandmother had many sayings like this, which she brought out at more or less appropriate times. ‘Never kill anything you won’t eat,’ she would say, adding in a milder tone, ‘Why waste the energy?’ Or, ‘Be dauntless, valiant, tragic, whatever you like; but don’t be stupid.” Or, ‘If you must fight, find of worthy foe.’ (Often adding with a shake of the head, ‘If you’re lucky enough to come across one these days.’) But usually, even if she had said it before, she would end her list of precepts with: ‘Always guard your treasure!’” (p. 4-6)

Nonesuch, for his part, takes life in stride, possessing a healthy curiosity, but without ever forgetting his roots. Though determined to follow his nature as well as his grandmother’s words, he does so his own way, going so far as to shrink himself to the size of smaller creatures. While a logical series of events leads to him discovering this ability, how he actually acquires it is only hinted at and never fully explained. Nevertheless, it grants Nonesuch a view of life that he has never seen before. This is doubly true regarding humans and their creation of books. It is not only of the joy of the written word where Kushner draws our attention. Through Nonesuch’s eyes, young readers get a glimpse of the beauty of illuminated manuscripts, on each page of which both words and pictures are painstakingly crafted to create a divine masterpiece of color and detail, almost as real as the real thing:

                “But the images on the top page in the binder and on the unfinished page drew [Nonesuch’s] attention more closely. The middle part of each page was covered with black letters. In the wide margins around the text were more familiar shapes. A vine started in the lower right-hand corner and spread all around the page, its branches meeting again at the upper left-hand corner. Small tendrils of the vine ran right into the text, marking certain letters with tiny red and gold flowers. Away from the text, the vine became alive with larger flowers in fantastic shapes and colors. Here and there faces peered out of the vine: unicorns, gnomes, mischievous monkeys, solemn toads. From one leaf a tiny bat hung, head down. In the blank spaces away from the vine, bright butterflies fluttered, looking as if in a moment they would fly away from the pages.” (p. 69)

Adding to this aesthetic, pictures of a similar nature are peppered throughout the novel, some larger ones bordering the pages that begin each chapter, while smaller ones are placed above or in between some of the paragraphs. (One of my favorites is the Robin Hood figure on the inside of page 18, shooting an arrow toward the upper left corner into the corresponding number, which flies backward in pieces.)

On that note, one thing in particular that struck me is how easy it was for me to forget that this is a book aimed at children, because of its surprisingly quiet atmosphere. Though there are some lightly amusing bits, certainly, like the almost casual manner in which the narrator chronicles Nonesuch’s attacks on cats and dogs that mistake him for prey; or when the grandmother matter-of-factly describes rearranging the chemistry of the stars in the sky as if it were comparable to clearing off a kitchen table; or—without giving away spoilers!—the oddly practical way in which Nonesuch finally gets rid of Abercrombie. But I think this aforementioned atmosphere boils down to the main character’s pragmatism. There were some points when I found myself thinking of the movie Forrest Gump. A weird comparison, I know, but please hear me out. Like Gump, during his entrapment within his manuscript, Nonesuch often finds himself in the midst of prominent events in history, such as the “Black Death”, the great fire of London, and the War of the Roses. Such events most remember and revere, while the more down-to-earth character may acknowledge it and but then move on with no real attachment or emotion. But that’s not to say that Nonesuch doesn’t feel nostalgic every now and then. The dragons of this story have neither true love nor hate for humans, generally preferring to avoid them altogether (unless, of course, they present themselves as a convenient meal). Nonesuch is no noble defender trying to justify the whims of humans in spite their evil ways. He reminisces and wonders a bit when presented with the somewhat existential question of why he chooses to live among the humans in the bookshop. But in the end, rather than dwell on it, he satisfies himself by deciding that it makes him happy, a simple and sensible answer that best suits his nature and his personal interests.

                “In the following days, Nonesuch hardly left the bookshop. This was not only on account of his own special treasure, the Book of Hours. From time to time he crawled into the cupboard in Mr. Gottlieb’s study to look at it—for the bookseller was too worried to take it out. But mostly, Nonesuch realized, he spent his time watching over the other books in the shop.
                Why was he so concerned with these books? They didn’t even stay in the shop. They were sold; people took them away, often with eager faces, and sometimes brought others to take their place. It was like the old days in the Abby of Oddfields, he finally realized, when he had set himself to guard the crops which, he knew, would be harvested and eaten, and replaced with fresh plantings. These books were the crops of the bookshop, Nonesuch thought. Curiously, this idea pleased him. My friends have good crops, he said to himself.
                Friends! How he had come to be involved in the ways of humans! Sometimes he wondered if his grandmother would approve. Then, he thought, this must be an aspect of human life that even she had never known. If we must be involved with humans, he told her in his mind, these are the kind of humans we should choose.” (p. 172-3)

Besides providing a unique take on the concept of a dragon guarding a valuable treasure from thieves or invaders, A Book Dragon also highlights the beauty of books—their creation as well as their use, both ancient and modern—without being obvious or preachy about it, and encouraging readers to enjoy and share the activity for its own sake. This is the kind of novel that’s best read in the evening, in a big comfy recliner, with a nice cup of tea or hot chocolate on hand. Something to make you think about your past fondly, and use those memories to move forward, but at your own relaxed pace. However, you may want to consider leaving the book out when you’re done for the night. There might be another “book worm” nearby, hiding just out of sight, wanting to take a peek, too. You never know :)

Credits: All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.

All book excerpts are from A Book Dragon by Donn Kushner (published by Avon Books, a division of The Hearst Corporation).

Main Theme:
“The Call” — Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund

Songs:
"Renaissance Castle" - Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions
"Journey in the New World" by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://www.twinmusicom.org/song/258/journey-in-the-new-world
Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org
"At Rest - Romance" by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100748
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Watch the original preview and episode videos here!

Donn Kushner in the Canadian Encyclopedia

Donn Kushner in Scholastic

Donn Kushner in Goodreads

A Book Dragon in Goodreads

Buy A Book Dragon on Amazon

Buy A Book Dragon on Barnes & Noble

Buy A Book Dragon on ebay

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